


tipping point

by theboilingrock



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, eddie kaspbrak’s unhealthy obsession w richie tozier’s shoulders, its reddie and they’re the idiots to lovers blueprint, thats pretty much the whole story just both of them being really fucking dumb, they’re 16-17 in this, this isn’t all angst make no mistake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 36,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theboilingrock/pseuds/theboilingrock
Summary: Eddie wondered again about his soulmate, his seventeenth birthday. It’s the big question, the one that everyone spends their childhood thinking.Who?Without thinking, Eddie’s eyes drifted over to Richie. He had his eyes closed, head tilted up towards the sky, a slight smile playing on his lips, the orange light of the fire making his face glow golden, and Eddie was overcome with a sudden surge of emotions that left him breathless.The summer before senior year, there’s a record breaking heatwave, and Eddie and Richie get their soulmarks.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 16
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so, i've been plagued by thoughts of these two idiots for over two weeks, and I've read almost every work in the reddie tag so far. so, I think it's high time I contributed my own take on these two. 
> 
> basically, I watched both movies and I was like, why are so many people doing high school aus when we don't even see them in high school? and then I watched the "Eddie Baby" animatic on youtube by meows teryy and read  "in between days" by gardensong on ao3 (both amazing pieces of art and writing, i highly recommend checking them out), and I was inspired to write a soulmate au. any fans of the animatic may be able to spot a scene that I just HAD to put in there. 
> 
> also, i know that there are a lot of high school aus out there that feel juvenile and weirdly straight coded, but i promise there are no weird “punk/pastel” tropes hidden in here.
> 
> so if you're like me and have trouble picturing them as teenagers, I highly recommend watching the animatic because that's how I'm envisioning them to look like in this. also it’s just amazing work of art by itself, which i literally watched like twenty times. or not, it's your choice.
> 
> (p.s. I’ve made some edits since I posted the second chapter, nothing major, but just in case anyone notices anything different)
> 
> enjoy!

Eddie Kaspbrak woke on the first day of summer vacation to the sound of insistent knocking on his window. 

It was hot, hotter than it had been the day before, the sun shining through the curtains and turning the air soupy and warm, a singular beam highlighting the dust floating lazily in the air. It had been predicted to be the hottest summer yet, already hitting records according to the ten o’clock news last night, and the Losers had made plans to go to the Quarry today. Stan had wanted to go to the clubhouse, but he was outvoted, Bill arguing that the clubhouse got ‘hotter than the surface of the sun’ when Bev and Richie smoked inside. Not that they were supposed to, Eddie usually managed to chase them up the ladder before they could poison everyone else’s lungs as well as their own. 

The sun was shining in Eddie’s eyes, and he threw off the covers when the banging on his window got louder and louder. He glanced at his alarm clock. Nine thirty, and it was already at least eighty degrees. He walked over to his window and threw open the curtains, a scowl on his face. It was Richie, perched on the ledge outside his window, his breath fogging up the glass. Eddie pulled the window open.

“Finally!” Richie exclaimed, swinging his legs in and perching on Eddie’s windowsill. “Got enough beauty sleep yet? I’ve been knocking for at least twenty minutes! Do you know how hot it is up here?” 

Eddie rolled his eyes. “No one’s making you climb up here like some kind of stunt double, dumbass. You could’ve, I don’t know, knocked on the door like a normal person?” He looked beyond Richie and out onto the street, where Mike’s truck was parked, presumably where the others were waiting. “How’d you manage to get Bev up? I thought she forbade you from waking her before ten?”

Richie _tsked_ at him. “Ah, young Spaghetti. So quick to judge. So disapproving. So little faith. Don’t you know that Bev is also easily swayed by the charms of none other than young Billiam Denbrough? I sent him over. We’re meeting them at the clubhouse.”

Eddie sat on the edge of his bed. “I thought we were going to the Quarry.”

“We are,” Richie said. “Ben left his stuff there yesterday, though.” He picked up Eddie’s alarm clock and began fidgeting with it, pressing various buttons and twiddling the dials. “Hey, did you get Bev something for her birthday yet?”

Eddie snatched his clock back. “Not yet. You?"

“Nope,” Richie said, popping the ‘p’. “Maybe I’ll just offer myself, as a rental for the day. I’m sure Bill won’t mind. I am irresistible, after all. Your mom can tell you all about that.”

“Shut up,” Eddie said, but there was no heat behind it. He stood. “I’m gonna go shower. I’ll be like, ten minutes.”

“You better,” Richie replied, swinging back out the window and going to climb back down the side of the house. “Stan’s already getting antsy, and you know he’s like a chihuahua that hasn’t been walked if he has to wait any longer than thirty minutes.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Eddie called after him, sliding the window shut. He watched as Richie turned, his expression one of horror as he tried to speak through the glass of the window, scrambling back up and knocking at the window again. “Can’t hear you!” Eddie sang, pointing at his ear before grabbing the towel from the back of his door and leaving the room.

In truth, it was probably closer to twenty minutes than ten, but the looming threat of Stan’s impatience stopped Eddie lingering any longer. He showered quickly, throwing on a clean t-shirt and shorts before running a brush over his teeth, methodically even with the rush. It wouldn’t do to let the bacteria from overnight stay in his mouth, because that could lead to plaque build-up, and cavities, and decay, and his teeth could crumble and fall out… 

Eddie shook his head, trying to erase the train of thought like an etch-a-sketch. He was trying to work on removing that mindset, but even after years of knowing that his mother had been lying to him his whole childhood, he still sometimes felt the creeping anxiety breathing down his neck that accompanied almost every activity, urging him to take his pills, to bring his inhaler with him, to ensure that it was _completely_ safe to swim in the Quarry, because who knew what kind of bacteria and germs were in that water that could give him an infection, and don’t even get him started on the sewer pipes that opened out into the river—

Anyway. He was working on it. 

Eddie raced down the stairs and past his mother on the couch without sparing her a glance, grabbing his bag that he’d packed the day before with his trunks and a towel, and throwing open the front door. He blinked against the glare of the morning sun, and crossed over to Mike’s truck. He knocked on the window, then swung himself up into the cargo bed at the back. He’d spotted Richie through the window in the passenger seat, and Mike didn’t trust anyone to drive the truck, so Stan was who he met at the back. 

“Ten minutes?” Stan looked over the top of his book at him, unimpressed. 

“Don’t tell me you were timing it,” Eddie said. Stan only spared him a long-suffering sigh in reply, going back to his book. His soulmark was visible on his wrist from here, the initials ‘PB’ printed neatly on his skin. Eddie sometimes caught Stan rubbing the mark absentmindedly with his thumb, smiling as if he’d just had a pleasant thought. 

Eddie still hadn’t gotten his soulmark, he wouldn’t until his seventeenth birthday. There were three of the losers left who had yet to get their soulmarks: Eddie, Richie and Bev, but Eddie was the youngest, a fact that Richie seemed to take delight in on a daily basis. So far, the Losers’ seventeenth birthdays had been affairs that were taken half seriously. For Stan, they had all gone out to the Barrens and passed around a bottle of whiskey around. At midnight, when his tattoo appeared, Richie had told a joke about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that made Stan elbow him in the ribs. For Bill, they’d gone to the clubhouse, and when the initials ‘AP’ appeared behind his knee Richie had made a wisecrack about nerd classes and how he hoped Bill’s soulmate was just as much a nerd as he was. When Ben had refused to show his soulmark to them, he was met with boos and pretend disappointment, and when Mike didn’t receive a soulmark at midnight on his birthday, he shrugged and smiled, seeming pleased. 

Eddie often wondered who his soulmate was, curious whether it was someone he had met already or not. The rest of them--minus Bill and Bev, of course--had deduced that Ben’s soulmark probably read ‘BM’, but no one said anything about it. Eddie hoped his soulmate wasn’t one of the girls from school. He didn’t really _like_ like any of them. 

They pulled into Ben’s driveway about five minutes later, and he hopped in the back with Stan and Eddie. Another five minutes and they were stopping at the edge of the woods, climbing out of the truck and wandering to the clubhouse. 

“I don’t know what we would do without you, Mikey,” Richie said, walking backwards to face them all. “Who else would give us free rides everywhere?”

“I knew you were only friends with me for my car.”

“No, I’m friends with you for your big di—“ Richie’s voice was muffled by Eddie covering his mouth with his hand, and Eddie was triumphant for a brief, golden moment of silence.

“Hey, I think I did it!” Eddie said. “I think I finally got the Trashmouth to shut—“ Eddie suddenly tore his hand away with a shriek when Richie licked it. “What the _fuck,_ Richie!” He wiped his hand on the sleeve of Richie’s shirt in disgust, and Richie cracked up. 

“You should know better by now, that’s the oldest trick in the book,” Richie laughed. “Losing your touch, Eds?”

“Do _not_ call me that,” Eddie snapped. “You’re disgusting. Do you know how many germs you could get in your mouth now?”

“Why, does that kind of thing get you going?” Richie wiggled his eyebrows, and Eddie saw Stan bury his head in his hands in despair out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, Eddie, all you had to do was ask. I can lick your hand all day long.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie said shortly, marching ahead to the clubhouse trapdoor. It was getting hotter by the second, and the quicker they got to the clubhouse, the quicker they could head to the Quarry. It was humid in the woods, and the shade didn’t seem to help at all, no cool breeze to cut through the haze. Even the birds had seemed to give up on singing today. He stopped at the door, turning to the others. “Why are we even here again?”

“Because,” Bev said behind him, “We need to get the goods.” Eddie turned, and Bev climbed up the ladder, holding two bottles of clear liquid. Bill followed after, pocketing a box of cigarettes. 

“You’re not seriously going to get wasted at nine in the morning,” Stan said incredulously. 

“Nah, this is for later. Ben left his stuff too, remember?”

Eddie sighed, going to lean against one of the trees to wait. There was no way he was going down into the clubhouse in this heat. Ben made quick work of grabbing his things, and then they all walked through the woods together, the quickest route to the Quarry. 

Sweat trickled down the back of Eddie’s neck as he walked, and he saw that the others didn’t look as if they were enjoying the heat, either. Bev’s face was flushed almost as red as her hair, and everyone’s hair was sticking to their faces. 

It was a relief to get out of the muggy woods. Bev was first off the cliff side, pinching Richie’s cheek before heading for a running start and leaping into the water with a splash. There wasn’t much of a change in the actual heat, especially considering they were now in the direct line of the beating sun, but the water was cool and fresh. At some point, Bill had dunked Richie, and his hair had gotten soaked. It was drying now, curling in the sun, and Eddie watched as Richie walked up to the bank, his hair framing his jaw, rivulets of water running down his neck and back. But then Bev splashed Eddie with water, and Eddie turned, the moment forgotten. 

Stan spotted a bird around noon, and had been sitting by the edge of the forest since, watching the skyline attentively. Ben joined him in interest, and then Bev had gotten out to sunbathe, stealing Richie’s walkman and lying out on a towel. Bill and Mike trailed off to the riverbed, probably talking about cars or something, and then Eddie was left in the water by himself. He looked for Richie, who had disappeared, but ultimately gave up, floating in the water and taking in the scene. 

Even though it was mercilessly hot out, the Quarry looked rather beautiful, the green trees stretching up to meet the clear blue sky, and the sounds of chittering birds and the soft conversation of the others lulled Eddie into a stupor. It was like a dream, and he closed his eyes for a moment, savouring it, hoping he could—

Suddenly he was shoved underwater, a pressure on his shoulder pressing down. He came up for air, gasping and splashing his arms, and whirled on Richie, who had dunked him. Richie, who had been laughing, whose smile froze when he saw the cold resolve in his eyes. He held his arms up in surrender, backing away slowly.

“Now, now, Eds,” He said nervously. “No need to—Ack!” Eddie shoved him into the water, and Richie came up for air, sputtering and squawking. Eddie splashed him again, and Richie held out his arms. “Mercy, mercy!”

“Asshole!” Eddie pushed him again, but before he could move to do anything else, Richie’s hand was around his ankle and dragging him under. Eddie fought him, yanking at Richie’s hand. Then, he went for a new angle. He opened his eyes underwater and squinted through the murky water, ignoring the thoughts of ‘Danger! Infection!’ and reached out and grabbed Richie’s glasses. Richie immediately released him, and both of them came up for air. 

“Eddie!” Richie sputtered. “Give them back!”

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

“Give em back!” Richie waved an arm out wildly, but Eddie knew he could barely see two feet in front of him. He stepped easily out of range of Richie’s flailing arms. 

“It would be a real shame if these were dropped into the river,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t be able to see at all, much less find them.”

Richie gasped. “You devious little fucker!”

Eddie smiled, then turned. “Hey, Bev?”

“What?”

“Want a pair of glasses?”

Bev shrugged. “Sure.”

Eddie tossed them over, and Bev slipped them on Bill’s nose, where he was laid out on his back next to her on a towel. 

“Eddie!” Richie gasped again. “When I get my hands on you…”

Eddie ignored the involuntary shiver down his spine. “Good luck with finding me.”

Richie flailed his arms again, squinting about five feet to the right of Eddie. “Polo,” Eddie offered helpfully, and then Richie turned to face him directly. Eddie quickly realised his mistake as Richie began to walk over.

Eddie blinked, then began to move away. Richie only waded through the water faster, and that was when Eddie realised he was toast. He turned and began to run in a desperate attempt to escape, the water fighting him at every step, but then Richie’s hand was on his shoulder and Eddie yelped in surprise, Richie dragging him backwards. “Hey!”

“No escape, Eds,” Richie crowed. “See, I can see you now when you’re this close.” He brought his face closer to Eddie’s, and Eddie swallowed. If his face was red, it was purely down to the heat, and nothing else. “I can see every freckle on your nose from here.” Eddie looked right back into Richie’s eyes, hyper aware of the close proximity of their faces. He could see everything from here too: the slope of Richie’s nose, the sharpness of his jaw, the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, the hair curling against his forehead. Time seemed to slow for a moment, the two of them completely silent as they looked at each other. Richie seemed to realise how close their faces were too, and he blinked in surprise, his lips parting slightly as he licked them. He was so close that Eddie could feel his breath on his face. He was so close that—

“Hey, idiots!” Richie and Eddie jumped away from each other like they had been burned, and turned. Bev was holding up the glasses. “It’s gonna get dark soon, we need to head back to the clubhouse.”

Eddie glanced at Richie, whose face which had been one of rare surprise a moment earlier quickly smoothed over into his regular grin. “Beverly Marsh, my knight in shining armour!” He waded over to the bank where she handed him his glasses, and he slipped them back on.

“D-doesn’t that make you the d-d-damsel in distress?” Bill said. 

“Uh huh,” Richie said, turning back to Eddie. “And Eddie Spaghetti is the big bad dragon, keeping my poor glasses hostage.”

Yet, as they walked back through the woods and Eddie glanced at Richie one too many times, he couldn’t help but think that inexplicably, he was the one being held hostage, his chest tight, his heart locked up in a vault.

  
  
  
  


“Hey Eddie. Hey, hey Eddie.”

“What?” Eddie turned, and Richie held up a VHS tape. 

“Think we could get the others to agree on this?” 

They were in the blockbuster on the corner of town, and the seven of them milled about the store, trying to decide on a movie. It was always a fruitless task that ended with them picking a sucky one from the bargain bin, because there was always _something_ wrong with someone’s pick. It was either too expensive, too old, too boring, they’d watched it before, or there would be another bullshit obscure reason Bev would find. Eddie had yet to have picked one that everyone agreed on. 

The movie Richie was holding up was _Star Wars_ _._ “You always suggest that one,” Eddie said, looking back at the action and adventure aisle. 

“Yeah, because it’s a classic,” Richie retorted. “Just because none of you have any taste.”

“Yeah well, that much was obvious. Remember when Stan made us watch _Look Who’s Talking?"_

Richie shuddered. “Don’t remind me.”

Eddie picked up _Aliens._ “We’ve watched this before, haven’t we?”

“Yep. Hey, think I could get Jaws past Bev if I bribe her with cigarettes?”

“Firstly, cigarettes are terrible and will destroy your lungs,” Eddie retorted, placing _Aliens_ back and moving on to examine _Ghostbusters._ “And no, that won’t work.”

Richie drooped. “Man, you guys are so hard to please.”

“I wonder if they sell records here,” Eddie thought aloud.

“Nah, this is just videos. Pretty sure there’s a store downtown that sells vinyls though. Why?” Richie leaned against a stack of discount romcoms.

“There’s supposed to be a new single coming out from this up and coming band everyone's obsessed with. Oasis?” Richie nodded.

“Hey guys.” Mike sounded defeated as he trudged over. “Bev found out _Dirty Dancing_ is up for rental. I wouldn’t bother looking for anything else.”

Stan’s head popped up over the other side of the aisle. “Seriously?”

“Pretty sure she’s already rented it.”

Bev had, in fact, already rented _Dirty Dancing,_ despite the protests. She held her head high as they trailed back to her house, arguing that because she was using her money, she got to have the final decision. She always managed to have some reason for her word being final, but in the end there wasn’t any real argument over it. As they settled in on Bev’s couch (her aunt was out with friends), all of them seemed to become engrossed in the story, and by the end Richie was swearing up and down that he and Bev would recreate the famous lift by the end of that summer. 

The conversation drifted over to soulmates after a while, and Bev began to talk excitedly about her birthday. It was nice and cool in Bev’s aunt’s house, their AC was turned all the way up to combat the heat. It had been a week since the summer had started, but the heatwave had yet to let up, and Eddie spent most of his time wiping sweat from his forehead and dodging Richie from putting his arm around him and rubbing his sweaty armpit on him.

“So where are we going to go for it?” Stan asked.

Bev frowned. “Not sure yet. Maybe the Barrens again? We could set up a campfire."

Richie leaned over to Eddie, and whispered in his ear. Eddie froze when Richie’s lips brushed his ear. “You got something for her birthday yet?”

Eddie turned. Richie’s face was illuminated only by the bright blue light coming from the TV, and it reflected off his glasses, so Eddie couldn’t see his eyes. “Nope.”

Richie paused for a moment, then said, “Hey, Bev, what d’you want for your birthday?”

“Isn’t the whole point that it’s supposed to be a surprise?” Mike pointed out. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie waved a hand dismissively. “But young Beverly here is extremely hard to buy for.”

“I’ll have you know I’m older than you, Tozier,” Bev said. “And you’ll find something. I believe in you.”

“She believes in me,” Richie repeated dreamily, sinking onto Eddie’s shoulder. “Hear that, Eds? I’m going to write that in my diary later. Right after ‘Mr Richie Marsh’, with the ‘i’s dotted with hearts.” 

Eddie shoved him off. 

Thankfully, they all managed to find something for Bev in time, and when they were all gathered around the campfire that Mike and Bill had made, they passed her their gifts, faces warmed by the orange glow of the fire, the only other light from the stars sprinkled across the dark blue sky.

Bill predictably got Bev a hopelessly romantic silver charm necklace. They both knew that they weren’t each other’s soulmates, but they didn’t seem to be bothered by it. “We have all the time we want,” Bill had said when the others asked about his soulmark and whether he would still be dating Bev. Mike gave Bev a free pass to drive his truck, despite complaints of favouritism from the others. Ben got Bev a poetry book that Eddie would’ve said was lame, if not for Bev’s touched reaction. Stan got Bev a pair of sunglasses so she would stop stealing his, and Bev squealed with delight when Richie presented her with an old pair of his mom’s designer high heels and a vintage pearl necklace. Eddie somewhat nervously passed his over, and watched as Bev opened it. 

Bev had mentioned in passing that she was interested in fashion, and often complained about the lack of magazines in Derry. Derry was so far flung and isolated that things like recent magazines and new books and movies were a rarity in the convenience store, hence the eighties and seventies movies that the Losers were left to rent. 

Eddie had ordered Bev a subscription to _Vogue_ after a brainwave one night, and he’d enclosed the first issue plus the letter of confirmation. 

Bev paused when she opened the wrapping paper, simply looking at the magazine. “Oh, Eddie,” She whispered. 

“Do you like it?” Eddie asked apprehensively. “I’ve still got the receipt, I can cancel the subscription—“

Bev stood and threw her arms around Eddie hugging him tight. “Thank you,” She said. 

Eddie blinked, his face turning red. “It was nothing.”

Bev pulled away and picked up the magazine again, flicking through the pages.

“Damn, Eds, way to upstage all of us,” Richie said. “And I thought I had a winner.”

Eddie was about to come back with a retort when his watch beeped. He’d programmed it earlier to go off five minutes before midnight as a warning that Bev’s soulmark was coming soon. 

Bev stood. “I’ll just go over there,” She said, poking her thumb towards the edge of the woods. 

“We’ll miss you,” Richie called. Then, as soon as she had left, he turned back to the rest of them, his face all business.

“Alright, Stanny boy. You still in?” He asked. 

Stan sighed deeply, rolling his eyes. “Yes,” He replied. “Only because you’d torment the rest of them if you didn’t rope me into this.”

Eddie turned to Richie. “Rope him into what?"

“Betting pool,” Richie replied easily, leaning back on the heels of his hands and ignoring Bill’s sputters.

“You’re unbelievable,” Eddie said. “And who’s betting on what?”

“Now that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?” Richie tapped his nose conspiratorially. 

Eddie was suddenly struck with a desire to be in on the bet, to impress Richie. “Wait, but what if I want in?” 

“Too little, too late, Spaghetti Man,” Richie sang. “We’re pretty much at midnight, right?”

Eddie checked again. “Two minutes.”

“Exactly. How ya feeling, Big Bill?” Richie asked.

Bill shrugged. “N-Not too worried. I’m f-f-fairly sure we’re not soulmates, but that isn’t really a problem with us-s.” The rest of them nodded in understanding.

The fire crackled again, spitting a few sparks out, and Eddie jumped back in surprise, nearly falling off his log. Richie held out a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Whoa, there!”

Warmth seeped into Eddie’s shoulder where Richie’s hand rested, but Eddie turned away quickly, pushing down the jump in his stomach. He checked his watch again, just for something to do. “One minute,” He said, even though no one had asked. 

“Wonder what she’s thinking right now,” Richie said. 

“I was scared out of my mind,” Stan said quietly. 

Bill nodded in agreement, smiling a little at Stan. “Me too.”

They lapsed back into silence, all watching the fire. Eddie wondered again about his soulmate, his seventeenth birthday. It’s the big question, the one that everyone spends their childhood thinking. _Who?_ Without thinking, Eddie’s eyes drifted over to Richie. He had his eyes closed, head tilted up towards the sky, a slight smile playing on his lips, the orange light of the fire making his face glow golden, and Eddie was overcome with a sudden surge of emotions that left him breathless.

But before he could even begin to tackle that, there was the swishing of the grass as Bev walked back over. She came into the light of the fire, but something was wrong. Her expression was shaken, pale. 

“So?” Richie asked.

Bev opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She looked at Bill, then, shockingly, looked at Ben, her eyes filling with tears, and turned on her heel and ran back into the fields.

Eddie exchanged a bewildered look with Stan, and Bill stood up, as if to go after her. 

“Wait,” Richie said, and Bill looked at him, confused. “I’ll go after her.”

And then he jogged in the direction of where Bev had run off, disappearing into the night. 

  
  
  
  


“So, did she tell you what happened?” Eddie asked, pushing the phone between his ear and his shoulder and pulling the cord closer. 

Richie was quiet for a moment down the line. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“I don’t think it's my place to tell,” Richie replied, and there was the noise of shifting on his end. “It’s not… _bad,_ in a sense, but it’s her secret to keep.”

“Okay,” Eddie said, moving over to the window. “So, the first soulmate disaster of the group. Think it’s you or me next?”

Richie groaned. “I hope neither. God knows this is gonna mess up the group dynamic.”

“We’ll have to see tomorrow,” Eddie yawned, sitting on the window ledge. It had been hours since Bev had run off, and the rest of them had left the Barrens, unsure of what else to do. Richie had called Eddie around midnight, and Eddie had actually been up for once, pacing around his room restlessly. His mom had tried to chew him out for staying out too late earlier (“Eddie bear, I was worried sick. Take the heating pad, you’ll catch a cold—“), but Eddie had ignored her, going straight to his room. He had been done being civil with her years ago.

“Man,” Richie sighed. “After all that crap about the summer being relaxing.”

“It’ll blow over, you wait,” Eddie said. “Bill and Bev said soulmates didn’t matter to them, remember?”

“I don’t know…” 

Eddie stifled another yawn. “Well, I guess we’ll have to see. You going to the clubhouse tomorrow to see the shit go down?”

“Might as well,” Richie said drily. His voice was different at night, softer and raspier. 

“I’ll see you there then.”

“Bye Eds.”

“Night, Rich.”

  
  
  
  


Eddie bumped into Stan on his way to the clubhouse the next morning, meeting him on the path down to the woods. 

“You too, huh?” 

Stan shrugged. “If anything’s going to go down, it’ll go down at the clubhouse, just you wait.”

They got to the clubhouse, tension mounting as they climbed down the ladder and into the room. Eddie looked around. Richie, check. Swinging in the hammock like the smug bastard he was for getting there first. Mike, check. Sitting by the radio and fiddling with the dials. Ben, check. Reading a book in the corner. But no sign of Beverly or Bill.

“So…” Eddie said. “We all came here to find out what happened, right?”

There were nods of assent. 

“Well, not Richie,” Stan points out, his tone only slightly accusatory. “He already knows.”

Richie immediately looked to Eddie, his gaze questioning, but Eddie held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I didn’t say anything. You’re severely underestimating Stan’s intuition here.”

“So you do know,” Ben clarified. 

Richie nodded. 

“Are you going to tell us?” Mike asked.

Richie shook his head. “Sorry guys, but for once, the Trashmouth’s lips have been sealed.”

Stan groaned, then trudged over to the radio with Mike. Eddie hesitated, then went over to the hammock. “Move over,” He said. Richie raised his eyebrows, but shifted slightly so there was enough space for Eddie to slide into the hammock beside him, top and tails. The hammock swinged slightly, and Eddie closed his eyes, letting it lull him into a half sleep. Even though they were older now, the two of them could still fit in the hammock together easily. Richie boasted about how much taller he was than Eddie, but in reality it was probably three inches difference at most. They were close enough in height that if Eddie wanted, he could reach out his foot and swipe off Richie’s glasses like he’d done before. He didn’t though, choosing to keep his eyes closed and sit quietly. 

“What’re you reading, Ben?” Mike asked.

Eddie opened his eyes curiously, and Ben blushed. “Oh, just some poetry.”

“You and your poetry,” Stan said fondly. 

“You’re not one to talk, Stan,” Richie said. “Birds?”

“Oh, shut it, Trashmouth.”

Richie laughed openly at that, the kind of laugh that could only be startled out of him by Stan. Eddie had learned all of Richie’s different laughs by now. There was the loud, obnoxious one that was all bravado, that he used to impress others. There was the low, quiet one Eddie only heard down the phone line late at night, and there was the triumphant, barking one whenever he teased Eddie to the point that Eddie literally went red with fury. There was the short, quiet laugh when Bev roped him into a scheme, and the slow lazy laugh when he was stoned. But by far, Eddie’s favourite laugh was the one that was startled out of him, the one that surprised even Richie. His eyes crinkle up in the corners, and lips form a grin before the usual, “Stan the Man gets off a good one!”

Eddie watched Richie for a moment, simply taking him in. But then Richie turned to meet his eyes, where he would normally be met with a snappy reply, but Eddie couldn’t offer one this time. Richie looked back at Eddie for a moment, before Eddie actually realised what he was _doing_ , and cleared his throat, looking away. 

Thankfully, a distraction arrived in the form of Bill Denbrough climbing down the ladder. Saved by the bell. 

Bill climbed down the last step instead of jumping the last two like usual, and his expression was shell shocked as he looked around at the rest of them watching him expectantly. “She b-broke up with me.”

“What?” Stan sat up.

Bill simply stared at the ground and sat down on the last step. “Want me to rep-peat it?”

“I—No, but, _why?”_

“Soulmark,” Bill replied defeatedly. Mike and Stan came to sit next to him. “It’s-s-s funny, I thought that didn’t matter to us, but ap-pparently it d-d-did, in the end.”

“Sometimes soulmarks change things,” Stan said, rubbing Bill’s back. “There’s nothing you can do.”

Bill looked up at the hammock, and Eddie started before he realised he was looking past him, at Richie. “D-did you know? That she was going to, you know.”

“What?” Richie looked shocked. “Of course not, man, I wouldn’t keep that from you.”

“Right.” Bill stared at the ground again. Stan shot Eddie and Richie a helpless look. 

Eddie looked at Richie frantically. _What do we do?_

Richie arched an eyebrow. _How should I know?_

Eddie scowled. _Thanks for the help._

Richie smiled pleasantly. _Pleasure._

“Are you… okay?” Stan hedged. “Do you want to go home?”

Bill simply shrugged. 

The rest of them sat there, floundering, unsure of what to say or do, but surprisingly, it was Mike who came to the rescue. 

“Hey,” He said quietly. “Want to go for a drive in the truck?”

“Sh-sh-sh-“ Bill paused, searching for another word. “Okay.”

And so Mike climbed back up the ladder, Bill following close behind. The rest of them were silent. 

“Wow,” Richie whistled. “Who would’ve guessed that ol’ Mikey was the Bill whisperer, huh?”

“I’m just glad that’s over,” Stan collapsed against the ladder. “That’s easily the most stressed I have ever been.”

“Really?” Richie asked incredulously. “Ever?”

Stan gave him the finger. 

“What are we supposed to do now?” Ben asked worriedly. “This isn’t going to break up the group, right?”

“Who knows, and who can dare to dream,” Richie quoted, before placing an arm on top of his eyes and lying back, incidentally giving Eddie an excellent view of his neck. Eddie looked away.

“Well, I’m going to go,” Eddie said. “This was way too weird.”

“Aww, is Eddie sad that the group is fighting?” Richie said, moving his arm away from his eyes, and going to grab Eddie’s leg. “Don’t leave me, we’re the only solid part of the group left, you and me. I’ll always be around to annoy you to death.”

Eddie kicked at his face, and Richie released him. “Shut up. I have stuff to do.”

“Stuff? What stuff? It’s summer vacation.”

Eddie didn’t mention the fact that he had to get away from Richie, to give himself some breathing room for a second to process everything. By everything, he didn’t mean the breakup, that was coming a mile off. ‘Everything’ was referring to the vague abyss at the corner of Eddie’s mind that Eddie was continually pushing down, locking away. The vague abyss in question that was one more push away from inevitable explosion. 

“Just… stuff, okay? I’ve got an essay to do over the summer.”

“It’s literally the first week of summer and you’re doing fucking homework?” 

“Yes.”

Richie eyed him suspiciously. “...Okay then.”

It wasn’t until Eddie had walked out a far enough distance away from the clubhouse that he finally let himself breathe. 

  
  
  
  


Now, it mustn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Eddie was still feeling the effects of his messed up childhood. His mother’s obsessive personality had leaked into Eddie’s, and sometimes he felt like he couldn’t help but revert back to those patterns.

It was always worse at night, when Eddie was left alone with nothing but his thoughts, sitting in silence that seemed to be louder than any other part of the day. 

What wasn’t helping was the whole _situation_ with Eddie’s feelings that he couldn’t figure out. It was messing with his head, disrupting its regularly scheduled neuroses and banging pots and pans around, diverting all the trains of thought into unfamiliar terrain.

Why he was so on edge now. Why he kept catching himself flushing involuntarily, feeling more embarrassed, self conscious. Why he was so nervous all of a sudden. 

Eddie’s mother still tried to give him pills, which he took from her just to get her to stop bothering him. He never actually _took_ them, just put them away in his bathroom cupboard and hoped that he’d never actually need them. Note: _hoped._ Because, deep down, there was still a part of Eddie that believed his mother, that wanted him to take the pills. Knew that he _needed_ those pills.

So he kept the evil little yellow bottles, locking them away and hoping that they would never see the light of day, but simultaneously, desperately wanting to take them—all at once or in regular doses, he didn’t particularly care.

Today in particular, Eddie’s mind had seemed to have decided that it needed those pills. Why tonight? Eddie didn’t know himself, but he just knew that he needed to take them immediately. To be clean, to be healthy, to be pure. He had been taking too many risks lately, swimming in the Quarry, drinking alcohol, sitting on the floor, _(staring at—)._ If he took the pills, then it would all be fixed. All of it.

Eddie lay in his bed and tried to think of reasons that he shouldn’t take the pills, his sheets pulled back in the hot night air, tangled at his feet in a knot. He was sweating, but it was a cold sweat, nothing to do with the heat, and his legs were shaking even though he was lying down. His thoughts were a cacophony in his head, banging and wailing for his attention, and Eddie suddenly swung himself to sitting upright, his breaths becoming shaky. A memory from earlier that day flashed in Eddie’s subconscious: Richie reading out a paragraph in one of Stan’s bird books, putting on a funny voice that made Eddie laugh until he cried. He banished the thought. 

He saw himself as if he were watching another person, creeping to the bathroom at the end of the hall, opening the cupboard and taking a bottle of the pills his mother used to give him. _Still gave him._ Careful not to rattle them, he padded back along the hallway and shut his bedroom door with a soft click, sitting back down on his bed.

He looked at the bottle of pills, so understated, so ordinary. His hands shook as he held the bottle up to the light and read the label, checking that they were still in date. The pills were white and powdery, in a soft oval shape that made them easy to swallow. He could do it, right now. He could take one of the pills, swallow it dry, just to stop the feeling of wanting to crawl out of his own skin, to rip away at the shell he was stuck in. His dirty, unclean, diseased body. The pill would fix that, would fix everything. 

He unscrewed the lid, his eyes stinging, and he could almost feel his mother's reassuring hand on his shoulder, her breath down his neck as she whispered about how this was the right thing, the _good_ thing. Eddie screwed his eyes shut for a moment, listening to the beat of the blood pumping through his skull. 

He opened his eyes again. He had taken a pill from the bottle, between his finger and his thumb. He rolled it experimentally, checking the texture. 

His thoughts, warring. 

_Do it, Eddie Bear._

_Think about how much better you’ll feel after._

_Think about how much cleaner your body will feel. How healthy, how strong. How pure._

_Just take it, and it will take all the bad feelings away with it._

_Should you, though?_

_Do it for Momma, Eddie Bear._

_Don’t._

_It will fix everything._

_Will it? It never did before. Why would it now?_

_You’ll be healthier. Happier._

_Will you?_

_Do it._

_Don’t do it._

_Do it._

_Think of what happened before. You’ve gone so long without them, you don’t really need them. You’ve never been sick like she said you were._

_Do it._

_Don’t do it. Think of why you stopped in the first place. They weren’t real, she was controlling you._

_Do it._

_DON’T DO IT._

_Do it for Momma, she loves you._

_This was never about love._

_Do it for Momma._

_THROW IT AWAY, EDDIE._

Eddie screwed up his eyes again, tears of frustration, of anger, now leaking out. He gripped the bottle so hard that it was starting to bend out of shape, his knuckles going white.

And all that time, one thought repeating, becoming more and more prominent cutting through the chaos that was Eddie’s brain like a newly sharpened knife.

Don’t do it.

_Don’t do it._

_DON’T DO IT._

Eddie gripped the bottle tightly, then flung it across the room, the bottle crashing against the wall, the pills all spilling out onto the floor with a smash. He pushed himself as far away from them as he could get on his bed, scrambling away and gripping his face in shaking hands. 

There was a soft tapping in Eddie’s head now that went alongside his pulse. It calmed him slightly. It was quiet at first, but became steadily louder, and suddenly with a jolt Eddie realised that it was coming from his window. He hastily dragged the back of his hand over his eyes, cursing, then went to the window, tearing open the curtains.

It was Richie. Of course it was Richie. Eddie slid the window open quietly, and Richie swung himself into the room silently, mindful of Eddie’s mother sleeping. His feet landed on the carpet with a soft _thump._

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.

He stood in the light flooding through from the window, surveying the wreckage of Eddie’s room: the bottle, smashed to tiny yellow pieces with the force of Eddie’s throw; the pills, spilled out all over the floor like shards of glass from a shattered mirror. Eddie’s wrecked face. 

He turned to face Eddie. His expression was unreadable, his glasses reflecting the light and obscuring his eyes.

For the first time in his life, Eddie didn’t have anything left to say. He sat on the edge of his bed, and put his head in his hands. He started to tremble.

There was a soft creak and the mattress shifted slightly as Richie sat next to him. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, quietly. 

Even when Eddie began to sob quietly, muffled into his hands, Richie didn’t say anything, he just put an arm around Eddie and held it there. 

Warm. Steady. Grounding.

  
  
  
  


The heatwave continued way past when it had been predicted, trailing into at least a fortnight since Derry had seen any rain. Stan had to literally drag Richie from the arcade at one point to get him outside, claiming that the air conditioned dark room still wasn’t better for him than outside, no matter how hot it got. 

Bev and Bill still hadn’t really resolved anything, but there was no massive falling out. They were just awkward around each other now, which was weird for the group dynamic, but at least there wasn’t a major rift in the Losers like Ben had feared. 

They still spent most days down at the Quarry, and in a desperate attempt to ignore the Problem (that being the all encompassing term he was using for the pills his mother was pushing on him and the unacknowledged feelings that he was batting off with a pitchfork), Eddie began to follow Stan around during his birdwatching sessions. It wasn’t actually as mind numbingly boring as Richie had made out, and Eddie found himself enjoying it more often than not. It was pretty relaxing actually, and Eddie could see why Stan liked birds so much. They were small and flighty, but once you were able to see one perched on a tree by itself, they were still, quiet, calm. Beautiful, Eddie thought.

Richie’s seventeenth was quickly approaching, and in a direct correlation was Richie’s excitement mounting. “Ten days,” He would announce proudly, as if they all didn’t already know from the announcement yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. He hadn’t mentioned the scene he had arrived upon when he knocked on Eddie’s window that night since it had happened, and Eddie didn’t mention it either, relieved. Richie always seemed to understand when not to pry.

Richie spent more and more time with Bev, actually, which surprised Eddie. He hadn’t realised how close the two were until Richie had been the one to follow Bev on her birthday, until he was the one she confided in about her soulmark. (Eddie still didn’t actually know what was behind all of the drama of it, but he assumed that Bill knew as well.) Sure, he knew that they smoked together and considered themselves the coolest members of the Losers Club, but Eddie felt a twinge of surprise every time he saw them talking, heads bent together. The twinge of surprise was sometimes accompanied by a sharper kick of something sour that Eddie couldn’t describe.

And so came Richie’s seventeenth birthday, thrust upon them suddenly. For once, none of them could take the heat, and so they hid in Bev’s basement again, seeking shelter from the humidity with the glorious AC. Through the windows, Eddie could see the sun setting with a splash of purples, pinks and oranges, the outlines of the trees stark against the glow. 

They were rowdy with the buzz of the whiskey Bev brought with, and they huddled in a big group, sitting in a half-circle in a way that Eddie hadn’t since Kindergarten. Mike and Stan had claimed the sofa, and Ben and Bill were left to lean against their legs. Bev draped herself like a cat over the carpet, her head in Richie’s lap, and Eddie sat on the big red Laz-E-Boy, having beat Richie to it when they all tumbled in from the fields earlier that night. He already had an earful from Richie about it, which he pleasantly ignored, and ever since Richie had positioned himself between Eddie’s legs, against the chair, he had held himself remarkably still.

They’d already given Richie his present—the seven of them had banded together to buy him tickets to a music festival next year that he’d been raving about. 

For once, Bev and Bill had apparently decided that they would try to act normal—probably because it was Richie’s birthday and they didn’t want to ruin it. 

“You need to cut your hair,” Bev remarked, reaching an arm up and mussing a hand through Richie’s hair. “It’s getting too long.” 

“Hey, hey, hands off!” Richie batted her hand away.

“Why? Afraid I’ll mess up your perfect, flowing locks?” Bev ran her fingers through her red curls, pulling a brooding face in imitation of Richie. It was quite uncanny, Eddie thought, but he disagreed. Richie’s hair looked fine, _more_ than fine, as it was. He’d been growing it out over the past year, past his ears so that his thick dark hair curled at the ends. Mike laughed softly. Stan had fallen asleep beside him, slumped against the couch cushions. He looked softer like that, less disapproving. 

Eddie shifted slightly in his seat, but didn't add to the conversation. He was okay with just watching the rest of them. 

“I do _not_ look like that!”

“How do you know? Wait, don’t tell me—do you pose in front of the mirror to practise?”

“Fuck _off,”_ Richie pushed Bev away, and she laughed as she rolled slightly on the carpet, then sat up. 

“You didn’t deny it,” She sang.

“Please,” Stan said, his eyes still closed. “Shut up.”

“You’re such an old man, Staniel,” Richie said. “It’s not even midnight and you’re already asleep? This is supposed to be the biggest night of my life!”

“I thought that was the night you slept with my mom,” Eddie interjected.

Richie paused, and thought for a moment, turning to Eddie thoughtfully. “Okay, fine. Second biggest night of my life. You know Mrs. K will always hold a special place in my heart, Spaghetti.” He made kissy faces at him.

Eddie rolled his eyes, chucking a pillow in Richie’s direction. It missed by a mile, but Richie stuck out an arm and caught it, and he tossed it right back at Eddie, hitting him straight smack in the face. Any traces of sleep immediately disappeared from Eddie’s subconscious as he sputtered, and his face contorted in outrage.

“What was that for?”

“You literally threw it first.”

“It _missed,_ jackass!”

“Oh cry me a river—“ But Richie was cut off as Eddie threw the pillow back again, but this time it landed true, knocking his glasses off. They skittered away on the carpet, and Richie scrambled to slide them back on his nose, his face now set in determination.

“Oh, game _on.”_ Without any warning, Richie launched himself onto the Laz-E-Boy, dragging Eddie by his ankle down on the carpet. 

“Get _off_ me!”

“You started it!”

“What does that—Ow!”

“Aha!”

“Fucking—Agh! What the fuck? What the actual fuck, Richie! A sock? What are you, five?”

“Shitting—Ow!”

“That’s how it feels!”

“Fucking _idiot—“_ Richie suddenly rolled them over from where Eddie had been sitting on Richie’s legs, trying to grab back his shoe, and suddenly the atmosphere shifted, becoming tense, charged, quiet. Eddie blinked, and he was suddenly caged in by Richie’s arms, and Richie hovered for a second, unsure. His face was so close that Eddie could probably count every freckle on his nose from here. 

Richie swallowed, and Eddie tracked the bob of his Adam's apple, then his gaze flicked back up to meet Richie’s. Richie’s eyes widened slightly like a deer caught in the headlights—if deer wore ridiculously thick glasses, of course—and, had his gaze flicked down to Eddie’s mouth for a second? Eddie’s breath caught and he thought he could just reach out and touch Richie’s hair from here. Would it be soft under his fingertips, Eddie wondered? Would it smell of Richie’s shampoo? Would he—

His watch beeped.

The moment broke with a _snap_ like a kid’s glow stick on Halloween. Richie moved away, and Eddie sat up quickly, checking the time. He felt out of breath, shaky, for some reason. He took a steadying breath.

“Oh, shit, what’s the time?” Bev said, apparently unaware of the significance of the moment. To be fair, everyone had learned to tune out Eddie and Richie’s bickering by now.

“Two minutes to go,” Eddie supplied, glancing at Richie. Richie looked away quickly, but he had already been facing Eddie, like he had been staring a second earlier.

“Well, guess I better go then,” Richie said loudly, standing up and dusting himself off, his face flushed. “Can’t have all you vultures hovering over me during my big moment. There’s only one of me after all, and at least one of you’s going to have your heart broken.” His tone was joking, but he still avoided Eddie’s eyes. 

“Well, g-go on then,” Bill shooed him away, to the small bathroom in the hall.

As soon as Richie had left the room, the six of them gathered closer together, forming a huddle.

Bev and Stan had a silent conversation with nothing but their eyebrows, then Bev nodded, turning to all of them. “Alright. This is Trashmouth’s big moment, we need to be prepared for all and any outcome. Everyone understood?” They all nodded. “Good.” She took out a cigarette and lighted it, sticking it between her lips. 

“Hey, after this it’ll just be me left to get my soulmark,” Eddie realised. “Weird.”

“Still the baby of the family,” Stan said. Eddie glared at him.

Smoke curled out of the end of Bev’s cigarette, and Eddie watched it make lazy swirling patterns in the air as they waited. He felt—he didn’t know how he felt. Why did he have to have words to describe these things? All he knew was that there was a sick feeling in his stomach, a pooling of dread in his gut. 

If anyone noticed Eddie’s mood, they didn’t comment on it. He drummed his fingers on the floor just to give himself something to do, and worried at his lip. 

He wondered—he wondered. He wondered what Richie’s soulmark would be. Whose initials would be printed against his skin, above the blood pumping through his veins, above his muscles, his bones, permanently inked on his body as a reminder. _I am meant for you. We were made for each other. In every possible universe, we were created as one soul, split into two, destined to reunite one day._

Eddie stopped wondering. 

It felt like the five minutes lasted five lifetimes as they waited for midnight, and Eddie watched the others. Beverly, slumped on the floor, a cigarette between her lips. Stanley, a book about South American birds obscuring his face. Ben, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. Mike, his demeanour sleepy and content. Bill, his eyes glazed over as he entered the half dream haze they call a daydream. 

And then, a crash from the bathroom down the hall, and they all jumped.

Stan poked his head over the side of the sofa, and they all gathered to look around the corner. “Richie?” Stan called. No answer.

Then, the door opened, and Richie emerged from the bathroom, his face white as a sheet. Eddie felt a strange sense of Déjà Vu as Bev asked, “So?” and Richie didn’t answer for a moment. 

“SD,” Richie muttered, and Eddie felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest for no reason at all. He felt an actual _physical_ pain in his chest, and it was all he could do not to clutch at it in despair. And yet, he still couldn’t explain to himself why.

No one had moved, and Richie’s complexion was steadily turning from pale white into a greenish colour. Suddenly, he clutched at his mouth, and ran over to the front door, wrenching it open just in time to throw up all over the front step. There was a beat of silence where Richie’s back was turned, and his shoulders shook. Then, he stepped outside, slamming the door behind him and leaving without a look back. 

Eddie was frozen. So were the others, judging by the lack of movement beside him. Bev was the first to recover, tearing out the front door after Richie, leaving the front door ajar so they could hear her calling out to him. 

The rest of them simply stood there, in shock. Eddie’s heart was beating so fast that he could barely breathe, but he took long, controlling breaths, forcing himself to get it back under control. He staggered over to the couch, and sat down, feeling as if twenty thousand gallons of freezing cold water had been dumped over him, and he was left alone. Freezing. Shaking.

Alone.

  
  
  
  


Eddie went through the following week in a daze. After the fiasco at Bev’s house, Richie had gone MIA, and Eddie had holed himself up in his house for the first week, not sure what he was hiding from. He stopped trying to call Richie around the tenth try that night.

Stan had dropped by his house at one point, asking what was wrong with him, and didn’t look entirely convinced when Eddie claimed sickness. Which was ironic, given Eddie’s history. 

The Fourth of July was the first indicator. Originally, the seven of them had planned to go out to the Barrens to watch the fireworks, bringing food and drinks. Eddie had been worried about Richie since his birthday, and when he’d arrived, he’d seen Richie’s body go rigid at the sound of his voice, his back still turned.

“Eddie!” Bill had called him over, and Eddie had sat down on the floor next to him. Stan had passed him a beer that Eddie had inspected dubiously before cracking open. He had looked up automatically for Richie, who was a little way away, talking to Mike. 

“Hey, Rich,” Eddie had called. “You got one of these yet?” He had held up the can, and Richie had turned slightly to him, and had shaken his head with a strange look on his face. Then he turned back around to face Mike. Eddie frowned slightly, but ultimately brushed it off.

Later, when they all gathered on the picnic blanket to watch the night sky, Eddie’s hand brushed Richie’s, and Richie yanked it back like it had been burned, moving to sit on the other end of the blanket without a word.

He didn’t speak to Eddie all night past the required “Can you pass ____?” or “Excuse me.” Excuse me. Because apparently that was something Richie said now. After the initial sting of the cold shoulder, Eddie spent the rest of the night with Bill and Mike, listening to them talk about the old car in Mike’s grandpa’s garage that they were going to try and fix up, trying not to burn a hole into the back of Richie’s head where he was staring at him.

Richie avoided him, always remaining on the opposite side of the circle. He always managed to disappear as soon as Eddie sat down near him, making up some bullshit excuse about needing to get a drink. Eddie spent the whole night bewildered by it, by the sudden wrench thrown into the rhythm of their friendship. He went home that night with a weird feeling in his chest, and the next morning he was up bright and early with a clear mission in mind.

Beverly’s house wasn’t too far from Eddie’s, and it took him about ten minutes to walk to it. She answered the door after two rings of the doorbell, her hair wild and curly, lit up gold by the glare of the sun, wearing sweatpants rolled up at the ankles.

“Do you know what’s going on with Richie?” Eddie blurted out before she could even open her mouth. 

Bev raised an eyebrow. “Hi, Eddie. Isn’t it a little… early?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the rule, don’t wake you before ten. But this is important.”

“Okay. Well… come in, I guess.”

Eddie followed her into the main hallway and the kitchen, and sat at the table, feeling strangely awkward. Which was weird, because it was Bev, and he’d been to her house a million times before. The room was lit only by the bright sun from outside, reflecting off the shiny tablecloth. 

Bev went to get a glass of water, then sat opposite him. “So.”

“You followed Richie after he left on his birthday, right?” Eddie asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“So, do you know why he’s acting so—weird?” Bev paused. Eddie ploughed on. “Because he’s not answering my calls and whenever I see him he practically ignores me, and yesterday he said ‘Excuse me’ to me. _Excuse me._ I know there’s something wrong. What is it?”

Bev sighed deeply, running her finger around the rim of her glass. “There is something wrong, yeah,” She said. “But he won’t tell me either.”

“What?” Eddie frowned. “But, you guys tell each other everything.”

“Well, Richie clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, so I haven’t pushed.”

“But, something’s wrong,” Eddie argued. “What’s made him so—so— closed off?”

“I don’t know, Eddie,” Bev repeated. “I’ve told you everything I know. If you want to know about it so bad, just ask Richie.”

“But he won’t _talk_ to me,” Eddie started vehemently, before stopping short and realising the conversation was going nowhere. He promptly shut his mouth. “Actually, it’s fine Bev. Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out.” He stood, his chair scraping back.

Bev stood too. “Wait, Eddie—“

“Don’t worry,” Eddie said, truthfully. “You’re fine.” It wasn’t Bev’s problem, she had her own soulmate shit to work through. Eddie would have to find another way to fix this. 

Bev reluctantly bade him goodbye, and Eddie immediately power-walked in the opposite direction, to Stan’s house. His mother answered the door, and told him Stan was upstairs. Eddie jogged up the stairs, two steps at a time, and opened Stan’s door without any hesitation. 

“We’ve got a problem—“ He stopped short in the doorway. Richie was sitting on Stan’s bed, and Stan wasn’t there. “Oh.” Eddie’s eyes flicked around the room nervously. “Sorry. I thought Stan was—“

“He’s in the shower,” Richie said. He looked terrible. His eyes had deep grey shadows underneath them, and his hair was unbrushed. He was wearing what he had been wearing the night before. 

“Right,” Eddie said haltingly, unsure of what to do. He couldn’t exactly just sit down on the bed next to Richie, he’d made it perfectly clear yesterday that he didn’t want to be around Eddie. Eddie worried at his lip again. At this rate, he would have gnawed his entire mouth off by the end of the summer. “I’ll just…” He stepped back into the hallway. Richie watched him warily. Eddie took another step back, and it was at that moment that Stan emerged from the bathroom next door, his hair wet.

“Oh, Eddie,” Stan said, surprised. “I didn’t know you were—“

“Don’t worry,” Eddie cut him off. “I was just leaving anyway.” He ignored Stan’s frown, and turned back to the stairs, walking slowly down them, reminding himself how. One step after the other. Weight balanced equally across his two feet. He made it to the front door, and heard Stan say, “What was _that?”_ before he left the house. 

Eddie’s options were steadily narrowing down. Bev, the most emotionally intelligent of them all, had shut him down. Stan, the logical one, was occupied. The next best option was Bill, but Eddie wasn’t sure whether it was best to go ask him about soulmate problems right now, given his situation. So that left Ben, and Mike. Eddie weighed the two up, but Mike was probably out on the farm, and Ben always gave out good advice. 

Ben usually went to the library most days, something that the others could hardly believe. Eddie walked by his house, grabbing his bike, and rode into town, the sun now crawling up the sky as it led up to noon. If June had been humid, then July was shaping up to be a hundred times so, and Eddie wiped at the sweat beading on his forehead as he left his bike by the lamppost outside the library, patting the handlebars of his bike dry with the corner of his shirt. 

The thing was, Eddie couldn’t come up with a single reason why Richie had such a freak out on his birthday, why he was acting so strangely now. Eddie’s first thought was that it had something to do with his soulmate, but Richie himself had told them the initials on his tattoo, and they didn’t know anyone with the initials ‘SD’, not that Eddie knew of, anyway. So Richie running away must have been separate to why he was avoiding Eddie now. Yeah, that sounded right. He probably threw up on his birthday from residual nerves. But there left the question: why was he avoiding Eddie?

Ben was in his usual seat in the corner, hunched over a thick, leather-bound book. He looked surprised when he spotted Eddie approaching. “Hey, Eddie.”

Eddie sighed, and sat down. “Hi.”

“Not that I’m not pleased that you’re out here today, but—“

“Did you notice something off about Richie?” Eddie asked quickly. “Yesterday, I mean.”

Ben shut his book. “I mean, yeah, didn’t we all?”

“Yeah, but he was acting weird around me _specifically._ He wouldn’t talk to me all night.”

“Huh.” Ben rested his head on his hand. “I didn’t notice.”

“Really?” Eddie asked desperately. Maybe he was making it all up. Maybe this was stupid, he should’ve just shut his mouth and realised that Richie was acting normally, Eddie was just being obsessive—

“Well, I guess you guys were quiet all night. Like, usually there’s at least one argument about something stupid.” Ben looked thoughtful. “But yesterday? Nada.”

“It’s been like this since his birthday,” Eddie said frantically. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong, and it’s pretty fucking annoying that he won’t even _look_ at me.” His voice rose in volume, and he earned himself a shush from the librarian at the desk. He whispered a hushed ‘sorry’ to her, and when he turned back to Ben he suddenly realised what he was doing. Ben, who just wanted to read his books, being interrupted by Eddie who was talking his ear off about something that he probably didn’t even care about. He was probably already sick of him. “It’s probably just stupid.”

Ben frowned, concerned. “Doesn’t sound stupid to me. You said Bev thinks something’s wrong too?” Eddie shrugged. “I think you should leave Richie to cool off. He’s obviously working through something, he’ll come around eventually. He always does.”

“You’re probably right,” Eddie said, slumping down on his chair. He had a sudden urge to change the subject. “Hey, what’re you reading?” He asked, leaning over to read the cover upside down.

“Just an old copy of _Pride and Prejudice,”_ Ben answered, turning it so Eddie could read the cover. “Apparently we’re doing it in English next semester.”

“Really?” Eddie asked. “You got any more books we’re gonna do? I might as well get ahead.”

Ben blinked in surprise. “Yeah, actually. I think there’s a copy of _Macbeth_ around here somewhere.”

Eddie stood. “I’ll go find it, then.”

  
  
  
  


And so Eddie spent the next several days trying to ignore the Richie shaped hole in his life. He started going to the library with Ben, and sometimes went over to Mike’s house with Bill to watch them fix up the old car. Bev remained silent on the Richie matter, and Eddie didn’t ask about it any further. He knew that Stan must have had some kind of semblance of an idea judging by the fact that Richie was at his house that day, but like with Bev, Eddie didn’t bother asking. 

He hadn’t gone to the clubhouse since, despite the others' constant requests, and he hadn’t seen Richie since the Fourth of July. Well—He had seen him once. Eddie had gone into town to pick up some eggs from the convenience store, and on his way back he nearly walked into Richie. Richie had jumped, and Eddie had simply moved out of the way so that he could get past on the sidewalk. Not a word was said. 

But that hardly counted. 

Eddie’s birthday was fast approaching, only falling a couple of weeks after Richie’s, a fact that was playing on repeat in his head daily. Where normally Richie would be cracking jokes about Eddie finally growing up and Eddie snapping back furiously, instead Eddie was left to think about it quietly by himself. The Losers Club hadn’t been together in one place since the Fourth of July, and Eddie wasn’t sure whether that changed what was happening on his birthday, now. 

In other news, Eddie dug out his inhaler and began to carry it around with him again, a fact that made him ashamed—but not ashamed enough to not carry it. Whenever his fingers brushed it in his pocket, a lump would form in his throat, but he couldn’t seem to be able to throw it away. He hadn’t told anyone that he had it again, but hey. Richie had fucked off, Stan and Bev were being secretive, and Ben, Mike and Bill would only look at him in pity. So Eddie kept the inhaler a secret, tucking it away, hoping that he would never use it. 

“So, Eddie,” Mike had said one afternoon, the sun gleaming off the recently waxed car. “What are the plans for your birthday?”

Eddie had grimaced. “Well, it’s not like we can all get together, can we?”

“Sure we can.” Mike had pulled at a wrench on the hubcap.

“Richie wouldn’t show up, anyway.”

“We’d make him.” Eddie had looked up at Mike, his expression disbelieving. “Sure we would, everyone else had everyone at their birthday, why shouldn’t you?”

And so now, Eddie had been informed that everyone was going to meet at the clubhouse for his birthday, rain or shine. Well, it wasn’t likely that they would get any rain given the drought, but that was hardly the point. The point was, that the Losers Club would be fully assembled again. 

He walked to the clubhouse at around eleven, feeling like he was one more misfortune away from literally imploding, his nerves jumping at so much as the snap of a twig. He got to the clubhouse and climbed down the ladder, only to find that Stan and Richie were already there, talking quickly in hushed tones. They both whipped their heads towards him when he cleared his throat. “Hi.”

“Hey, Eddie,” Stan said easily, as if he hadn’t been urgently hissing something at Richie a moment earlier. “You excited?” 

Eddie waved his hand in a ‘so, so’ gesture. “Eh, kind of. I mean, how big of a deal can it possibly be?” He glanced at Richie, who was staring at him with an intensity that nearly made Eddie flinch. 

“Guess we’ll have to see,” Stan said, sparing a glance at Richie too. Richie glared at him, and Eddie nearly laughed before remembering that he and Richie weren’t talking.

Well—‘weren’t talking’ felt way too middle school to Eddie. Besides, it was Richie who wasn’t talking to him, leaving the empty space their bickering usually filled crackling with electricity. 

Eddie stood there, unsure of whether he should go and sit with them. He couldn’t go and sit somewhere else, but would it be weird if he went over to them? Maybe it would be safer to just stand there. But then Stan would look at him weirdly and Eddie would have to actually find a place to sit… 

Thankfully, at that moment Bev and Mike hopped down behind him, and Eddie turned to them instead. 

The others followed not long after, and the seven of them gathered in a loose circle. Bev brandished an eight pack of beers that she had brought, passing them around. Eddie took one when offered, swallowing down an ice-cold gulp and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“So,” Bev said, taking a swig. “Eddie’s finally turning seventeen.”

“Little baby’s all grown up,” Bill cooed, and Eddie flicked him on the arm. 

“Shut up.”

There was a beat, where they all fell silent, waiting. Eddie frowned, trying to figure out why. It came to him suddenly. Richie would normally throw in a jab after that, make Eddie flush and the rest of them laugh with a wisecrack about Eddie’s mom and stepdads. But then the moment was over as quick as it had appeared, and the conversation moved on, as if that microsecond of silence was never there in the first place. Maybe it hadn’t been, maybe Eddie had been imagining it. Eddie looked at Richie from across the circle, where he was fidgeting with his bottle cap, uncharacteristically quiet (Was it even considered uncharacteristic now? Richie had been like this for a good few weeks).

“Are we going to give our presents or what?” Mike asked, and suddenly everyone was nodding, shifting around, producing wrapped gifts. Eddie flushed. 

“You guys didn’t have to—“ He started, but Bev quickly cut him off.

“Hush hush. Open mine first.”

Bill had gotten him a new bell for his bike, Ben had gotten him a library card (Eddie had been using his up until now), and Mike produced a book about safety measures that had gotten a good laugh out of everyone. Bev brought a rock salt lamp that her Aunt had been raving about, and Stan solemnly passed over a basket heaping with bread and cake that his mother had helped him bake. Finally, Richie held out his gift, and Eddie reached out and took it, fingers brushing momentarily with Richie’s. He fell silent as he tore through the paper. It was a new walkman, and a mixtape, entitled, “To: Eddie. From: Richie.” Eddie turned it over, and on the other side was scrawled, ‘Listen to it, asshole!”

Eddie looked up and met Richie’s eyes and for a moment, it felt like it was just the two of them in the room together. “Thanks, Rich,” Eddie said softly. The most he had said to Richie in weeks, and Eddie’s throat felt constricted.

“No problem,” Richie replied quietly, not looking at him. And Eddie _ached._

Then the watch beeped, and Eddie checked it. Five minutes to go. “Right,” He said, standing up and tucking the mixtape in his pocket. His arms dangled awkwardly at his sides. “I’ll be a minute.”

The climb up the ladder seemed to last forever, and Eddie walked out a bit into the woods for some privacy. He paced for a minute, then checked his watch. _23:57._ He swallowed down a bout of fear, and leaned against the trunk of an old tree.

He slipped his hand into his pocket, and took the mixtape out again, looking at it, tracing his finger over the words that Richie had written. It was so confusing. He couldn’t tell whether it was hot or cold with Richie. One minute he was avoiding him like the plague, the next he had sat by a stereo, recording songs for a mixtape to give to Eddie? Why was he acting so weird?

Eddie leaned his head back against the tree and sighed. _Richie, Richie, Richie._

It all came back to that, didn’t it?

Eddie’s watch beeped again, and he started out of his train of thought. Midnight. There was a tingling sensation on Eddie’s shoulder, like pins and needles. He slid down the tree to sit on the ground. His breath caught, and he paused for a second, took a deep breath in like he was about to dive into the ocean, and yanked at the neck of his t-shirt, looking down at his collarbone.

And there, scrawled in small, messy handwriting, were a pair of initials that Eddie could barely make out in the dark, tattooed right above the bone. He squinted, making out an ‘R’ and with further inspection, a ‘T’ following it. 

There was a moment, where Eddie remained blissfully unaware, sitting in the dark forest, the chirping of the crickets and cicadas fading away to near-silent as he processed the letters, closing his eyes and thinking.

There’s an expression for that, actually. The calm before the storm. The moment that has the whole audience on tenterhooks, watching as the protagonist waits for the fight to start. They take a collective breath in, and the camera focuses on their face, at the last moment the audience will see them completely still.

_R, T._

_RT._

_RT…_

Eddie’s eyes flew open, and the realisation came like a slap to the face. 

The orchestra stops, the violins screeching to a sickening halt. The program pauses, the canned laughter cutting off suddenly and lurching into shocked silence.

_RT. Richie Tozier._

But, no. It couldn’t be. That was impossible. 

Richie couldn’t be… He couldn’t be Eddie’s… 

The breaths came faster and faster, and Eddie felt his throat begin to close up, and just slightly quieter than the words ‘RICHIE TOZIER’ being projected across his mind with wailing sirens, there were quick, fleeting, panicked thoughts of, ‘inhaler’ and ‘asthma’ and ‘medicine’, which he tried desperately to ignore.

Because there was no way that Richie Tozier was Eddie Kaspbrak’s soulmate. 

There was a lurch in Eddie’s stomach and a sickening montage across his thoughts, of the secret glances, of the lingering touches, of the laughs he drank in like water in a vast dry desert with no civilisation in sight. Because of course. It had been there all along, and Eddie was too blind to recognise it in himself. All of those feelings he had been pushing down, refusing to acknowledge out of reflex.

Richie had a soulmate who was somebody else, Eddie reminded himself. Richie was normal, Richie wasn’t _(dirty)_ like Eddie. Eddie couldn’t be in… _love_ with a _boy._ Eddie couldn’t do that, that wasn’t an option. That would never be an option.

The whole notion was—impossible, ridiculous. It couldn’t be true. 

Eddie checked again, but the initials were still there, sitting stubbornly against his collarbone. He could have denied it to himself, told himself it was someone else with the same initials, but Eddie knew Richie’s scratchy handwriting as well as his own, had seen it on the fucking mixtape that Richie had just given to him. His breaths quickened. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Eddie couldn’t have a boy as a soulmate. He had seen enough of what happened to others like him, what happened when people found out. He had seen his mother, seen _himself_ harp on about the AIDS crisis, seen kids at school scream taunts and slurs. Eddie felt his throat begin to close up completely. _Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck._ He needed his inhaler, he needed _(your medicine Eddie-bear)_ something to stop the tightening of his airway. 

“Eddie?” _Shit._ Exactly what he needed right now. Eddie clawed his hands through his hair, his breaths coming quicker and shallower. “You’ve been out here a while, what’s--” A beat. “Shit, Eds, are you okay?”

That was Richie’s voice, spiking with alarm. Even better. “I need--” Eddie gasped, his eyes screwed shut. “Inhaler.”

“Okay.” Richie squatted next to him and scrabbled in the pocket of Eddie’s jacket, pulling the inhaler out and holding it up to his mouth, somehow immediately aware of where the inhaler had been hidden. Did that mean that he knew Eddie had been carrying it around with him all along? “Here.” Because Richie was always able to do that. Behind all the bullshit and the jokes, he was always able to see right through Eddie. Because he saw the pill bottle, smashed on Eddie’s floor that night, and he _knew._

Eddie felt sick.

Still, he clutched a hand around Richie’s where it was holding the inhaler up to his lips, and felt his breathing begin to slow, as the _(placebos, bullshit)_ medicine eased the muscles in his throat. The fucking inhaler that Eddie didn’t even need, but at the same time hung onto like a lifeline. 

Richie held the inhaler to his mouth even as Eddie’s breaths fell back to normal speed, and there was a second where they simply stared at each other, Richie’s dark eyes just visible in the dimming light through his stupid glasses. 

“Okay?” Richie murmured. 

Eddie swallowed, then nodded. His hands were probably sweaty where they were gripping Richie’s over the inhaler, but if they were Richie didn’t comment on it. His eyes bored into Eddie’s, a soft urgency playing across the furrow of his eyebrows. For not the first time, Eddie found himself wanting to reach out, to touch Richie’s face. 

Eddie could have spent hours trying to memorise the shape of Richie’s profile right there, but at that moment there was a clatter as the rest of Losers climbed up the ladder and out of the clubhouse. Eddie got to his feet, leaning slightly on the tree trunk. Richie followed suit.

“Eddie?” Stan was the first out, followed by Bev, then Mike, then Bill and Ben. “What’s going on? Have you got your soulmark yet?”

With a jolt, Eddie remembered why he had had such a reaction in the first place, and suddenly the proximity of his and Richie’s bodies was a measurement he had down to the centimetre. He felt like his mouth was filled with straw. He blinked at Stan, then swept his eyes over every single one of the Losers’ curious faces, finally landing on Richie’s next to him. He tried to swallow, but his throat was bone dry. 

What could he say? He couldn’t tell them what his real soulmark read, that was out of the question. He could practically see the rest of them reeling back in disgust, casting him out, their expressions horrified. But he couldn’t lie about it either. They would never believe him, Eddie had always been a terrible liar, the proof was right next to him, where Richie had held the inhaler a second earlier.

He couldn’t even move his mouth either way, there was no use agonising over it when he wouldn’t end up saying anything at all anyway. Eddie shook his head slightly, staggering backwards, hunching his shoulders. 

“Eddie?” Richie was staring at him. “What is it?” 

Eddie shoved his inhaler back into the pocket of his jacket, then made a split-second decision, turned on his heel, and sprinted off and through the forest. He couldn’t lie, he couldn’t tell the truth, so he ran. Pretty cliche, considering that the last three soulmark fiascos had all ended with someone running off. And if the last two were anything to judge by, someone would follow him.

“Eddie!” There it was. Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head as he ran. The trees were a blur around him, and sticks cracked and bushes rustled beneath his feet. “Wait!”

The thumping footsteps behind him came closer, and there was a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. Eddie whirled around to face Richie. 

“What?” He snapped, shrugging Richie’s hand off his shoulder. There was a flicker of something across Richie’s face, but it was gone in a flash. 

“Talk to me,” Richie pleaded. “What happened?”

Eddie felt anger suddenly flare in his stomach, built up after weeks of Richie giving him the cold shoulder. Eddie scoffed in his face. “Talk to you?” He stepped forwards, pushing a finger in Richie’s chest. “What, like _you_ talked to me for the past two weeks?”

“That’s different.” Richie said quickly. 

“Different? Different how?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does!” Eddie cried. 

Richie shook his head, and grabbed Eddie’s wrist where he was pointing at Richie’s chest. “What happened, Eds? Why did you—you know.”

“You mean why do I still carry around that fucking inhaler? Why do I still need it?” Eddie laughed bitterly. “Isn’t it obvious? My fucked up brain still believes my fucking mother.”

Richie’s grip loosened. “That’s not what I—“ He stopped mid-sentence, frustration clear in his face. “I meant, why did you freak out? What happened with your soulmark?”

Eddie yanked his arm away. He couldn’t touch Richie. Wouldn’t let himself. “That’s none of your business.”

“Maybe not, but it matters to me. _You_ matter to me.”

Another phrase that can be applied to this kind of situation: the tipping point. The point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. All of those small moments in the past few weeks paving the way to this moment: Richie, grinning at Eddie from across the clubhouse. Richie, grabbing for his glasses as Eddie laughed, holding them just out of reach. Richie, that haunted look crossing his face as he emerged from the bathroom on his birthday. Eddie and Richie, the smashed bottle of pills between them, the dark light of the room reflecting off the shards of yellow plastic. Eddie sometimes felt like he was going insane, like he didn’t know anything. But he knew one thing for sure right now. This was the tipping point. He had to make a decision right now. The chains wound right around that corner of Eddie’s mind had already burst free, the lock falling to pieces, the hard truth revealed. 

Eddie couldn’t take any more of Richie’s soft, well-meaning words when the truth could come tumbling from his lips at any second. He didn’t trust himself to not give himself away if he stayed there any second longer, listening to Richie. And so he made another, terrible decision. The only way he could get away from this mess, escape Richie’s earnest big eyes. The tipping point. 

“God, can’t you take a hint?” Eddie exploded. “When someone runs off, it normally means that they want to be alone. But you just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? Always the Trashmouth.”

Richie jerked back as if he had been slapped. “Eddie…”

Eddie turned away, not letting Richie see that his eyes were stinging. “Just fucking leave me alone.” He choked out, and yep, that was his throat burning too. He walked back up the path out of the woods, not bothering to run this time. 

Richie didn’t follow. 

As soon as Eddie arrived back home, he immediately gathered up all of the pill bottles in his bathroom cabinet and shoved them into a trash bag, not bothering to even turn on the lights. He then went on to find all of his old fanny packs and first aid kits buried at the bottom of his wardrobe, which were thrown in too. Finally, he took his inhaler out of his pocket, snapped it in half with gritted teeth, and threw it in the trash bag. With a final tight knot, he took the bag out and put it in the garbage can on the sidewalk. He wouldn’t let himself near them again. 

All of this was done in complete silence (“This is _your_ fault, all your fault,” He muttered as if the words were a lifeline), and Eddie was quiet as he went back to his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. He almost wondered if he would hear a tapping at his window, but it never came. 

He fell asleep facing the open window. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is already underway, it should be up within the next few days. until then, leave a comment or kudos if you liked this! they fuel me to keep writing. 
> 
> find me on tumblr @theboilingrock


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: (writes eddie with internalised homophobia and anxiety) NOT PROJECTING AT ALL
> 
> i kind of just spat out 20k words here,,,, just roll w it
> 
> **tw for briefest of brief mention of homophobic slurs**
> 
> (take a shot every time i type ‘freak out’)

The next morning, Eddie woke groggily, unsure of his surroundings for a minute. He was trapped in the limbo between being asleep and being awake while he gathered his thoughts, and the brief moment of peace was shattered as the memories of last night crashed down on him. His birthday. His soulmark. Richie. 

_Fuck._

Eddie sat bolt upright, his head pounding. His clothes were strewn all over the floor, torn out of his wardrobe where he had thrown out all his pills last night. The curtains had been left open, and one side of his face was burning where the sun had been shining on it, the other covered in pillow creases.

Eddie pushed his hair out of his eyes, and looked at his clock on the nightstand. _12:03._ God, was that really the time? Did he really sleep that long? Eddie rubbed the remains of sleep from his eyes, and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. Massive personal discoveries apparently really took the energy out of you.

And shit, maybe it was too early to joke about that. 

Eddie couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Richie’s face when he had yelled at him, the way he had flinched back, hurt and confusion combining across his face in a contortion of the eyebrows, a shocked widening of the eyes, a cloud of disbelief as the realisation set in. Sleep hadn’t dampened the memory of the night before or the sharp feelings behind it. Guilt curled in Eddie’s gut, and he fell back down on his bed, groaning. No doubt the others were furious with him; he was surprised that Stan hadn’t come to his house yet to yell at him. God, this whole situation was fucked. 

Although, despite that, it still beat the alternative. Of telling the truth. Of everyone knowing. Of Richie knowing.

Because Jesus Christ, Richie was Eddie’s soulmate. A _boy_ was Eddie’s soulmate, and that was a secret he was going to have to take to his grave. And not only that, but Eddie was one of the few lucky people in the world that had a soulmate that wasn’t their soulmate back. 

Jesus _fuck,_ Eddie was going to throw up. 

He lurched out of bed, hurrying down the corridor, and just made it to the bathroom in time, hunching over the toilet and retching into the bowl, all the while cringing at the thought of the germs there as a cold sweat broke out over his skin. But — no. Still retching into the toilet, Eddie had a sudden moment of cold hard resolve, a brief second of clarity. He made up his mind right there and then. He was done with panicking about germs, done with thinking about his inhaler and pills. They were gone, discarded at the bottom of the garbage can on the road, soon to be picked up and taken to the landfill, and that was where they were going to stay. No matter what, he would resist the urge to get them back, would refuse any more his mother gave him. He was going to rid himself of at least one fucked up thing if it killed him. No matter how long it would take.

He sat back on his heels, spitting once, wiping his mouth with a quick swipe of the back of his hand, and listened to his mother moving around downstairs.

“Eddie?” Her voice was muffled through the floor, tinged with sickening concern. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Eddie called, his voice hoarse. He sat a moment longer, breathing deeply, and then he stood, locked the bathroom door, and turned quickly to the mirror over the sink with a lurch in his gut. 

First, he washed his mouth with a swirling mouthful of water. Then, he stared at his reflection for a moment, working himself up. He took in a deep inhale of air, and gritted his teeth in the mirror. _Just do it._

He pulled off his shirt in a swift, violent movement and stared at his collarbone, the letters backwards in the mirror but ever certain in their meaning. The mark was as prominent as it had been last night, small and black, and it was only more obvious in the daylight that it was Richie’s handwriting. It was about the width and length of his thumb, and Eddie ran a hand over it, squinting at it in the mirror. He wouldn’t be able to go swimming now if he didn’t want anyone to see it — that being if the others even let him go with them to the Quarry again after all of this. 

Eddie suddenly felt his head go light, his ears buzzing, and his knees shook slightly and threatened to buckle. He gripped a hand on the edge of the sink, and leaned his head against the cool glass of the mirror, trying to ground himself, taking deep breaths. In for 7, hold for 4, out for 8. That was the order, wasn’t it? Or was it in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8? Whatever. It didn’t matter. Eddie’s shoulders slumped, and he was left exhausted all of a sudden. 

He left the bathroom eventually, making sure that his t-shirt was pulled over his collarbone before unlocking the door. It was suffocatingly hot today, more so inside the house, and Eddie was almost sorry when he made up his mind to stay in. What he wouldn’t give to be in the cold water of the Quarry right now.

He sat in his room for a little while, clearing up the mess, feeling more tired than he had felt in his entire life, and left the window open to let some fresh air in even if there was no sign of a breeze. He glanced out the window every now and then, and it looked like even the usual kids who played in the street in front of his house had been ushered indoors by their parents in fear of the heat. It must have risen ten degrees overnight, and it seemed like the heatwave was reaching its peak. 

Eddie realised about an hour afterwards that he’d forgotten to brush his teeth after throwing up, but instead of the usual spike of panic, there was only the tentative sense of victory. This was — progress. Spurred on by that, Eddie went over to the window sill and pulled himself up to climb out — ignoring the screaming fear in his mind — and sat out on the awning where Richie usually went to knock on his window, facing the street. He needed a place to think. Maybe a bigger jump, going from forgetting to brush your teeth to sitting out on the roof of your porch, but hey, Richie had done it hundreds of times before.

And _Richie._ Because once Eddie was no longer distracted by the cleaning of his room, last night came flooding back to him with a rush to the head. Eddie swayed a little with vertigo and the force of the reality check, and blinked hard a few times, an ache beginning to throb behind his eyes. God, Richie was his soulmate. How had Eddie not noticed his feelings for him earlier? How had he managed to ignore that for so long?

How could he ever look Richie in the eye again? How could he show his face at the clubhouse with the knowledge of that? 

And of course this all happened to Eddie in _Derry._ Fair enough, Bowers was long in jail and they were seniors come September, the whole bullying shtick had been finished after Freshman Year, but there was still intolerance everywhere— rumours whispered by students, hate crimes, laws. Eddie didn’t know whether he would ever fully accept this about himself, much less expect others to. 

Because that was it. That was what Eddie was, right? If his soulmate was a boy. If he had feelings for Richie.

He was… gay. 

Eddie blinked, thrown off by the fact that the revelation hadn’t caused a major national incident. There were no explosions, no gunfights, no gasps from passers by. He just — thought it. He almost laughed with relief. Almost.

Before he could reflect on that, however, there was a call from below. 

“Eddie Kaspbrak!” 

Eddie frowned, looking down from his spot above the porch, searching for the source of the indignance. Was it his mother? 

“Get your ass down here, _tout suite!”_

Ah, of course. Eddie caught sight of Bev, standing down on the sidewalk with her hands on her hips, eyes blazing. Eddie had known it would only be a matter of time before one of them showed up. He sighed, and moved over to the drain pipe down the side of the house, using it to climb down. Bev was staring at him stonily as he walked over to where she was standing. He crossed his arms defensively, oddly feeling like a scolded toddler under her fierce stare.

Unsurprisingly, Beverly was fuming. “What the fuck was that last night? One minute you’re hunched down by the tree looking like you’ve seen a ghost, the next Richie’s left standing in the middle of the woods like he’s just received a death sentence! You might as well have punched him!” She glared at him, expectant, and when Eddie didn’t reply, she demanded, “Well? What happened?”

Eddie opened his mouth, but the bravery from his revelation a minute earlier was gone, had vanished into thin air with a brief _sorry, only available for emergencies_. 

Eddie was suddenly struck by the terrible reality of this all. This was something Eddie had to deal with for the rest of his life, and he wasn’t _ready_ to start now. He tried again, but not a sound came from his throat. Horrifyingly, Eddie felt his eyes fill with tears. 

Beverly gaped at him, bewildered, as Eddie blinked furiously, his face burning with shame. “Eddie?” Her tone was unsure, and she stepped forwards. 

Eddie shook his head violently. He couldn’t deal with this. He couldn’t deal with this. He wasn’t ready. “What did Richie tell you?” His voice was thick, heart in his throat. Richie didn’t know, did he? There was no way he could have worked it out. And even if he had, would he tell the others?

Bev shook her head, at a loss. “He’s just as much in the dark as the rest of us.” Eddie could have collapsed with relief. “But, Eddie, are you okay? What happened? Was it something with your soulmark?”

“I —“ Eddie hesitated. Instead of his fear of germs, of diseases, a new one settled down on his chest like a dead weight, pressing down and making it hard to breathe. No one could ever know. He almost reached for his inhaler, but it was gone now, wasn’t it? It was probably on its way to the _(filthy, disease-ridden)_ landfill by now. “I can’t tell you. But… but tell Richie it isn’t his fault.

“Yeah, no, fuck that,” Bev retorted, confusion still written all over her face. “There’s no way I’m going back to Richie-kicked puppy-Tozier just to tell him ‘it’s not his fault.’ What the hell, Eddie?” She stepped forwards again, but Eddie stepped back. Bev looked at him, hurt.

“I’m sorry Bev. Not — not now. Soon. Just give me time.” Eddie was closer to the porch now, and stuck a hand out to hold onto the pole by the steps, gripping it like it was the only thing keeping him anchored to earth. “But seriously,” He said. “Tell Richie it’s not his fault.” 

What kind of soap opera shit was this? Eddie was basically saying _‘it’s not you, it’s me.’_ Except he and Richie weren’t breaking up, or dating. They never would.

Beverly shook her head again, baffled. “Okay, but please, don’t hide yourself up here. _Talk_ to us, Eddie. We’re your friends.”

Eddie felt his heart tug at that. If only she knew what she was really talking about. 

But to reassure her, he nodded. “Alright.”

  
  
  
  


Next, they sent Bill. 

Eddie heard him speaking in his soft voice to Eddie’s mother when he woke up one morning a few days after Beverly had come to his house, and launched himself out of bed, changing quickly and leaving his room after a quick check that his collarbone was covered. 

He walked downstairs apprehensively, but relaxed a little when Bill waved at him cheerily. 

“Hi Eddie,” Bill said. “M-Mike let me b-b-borrow his truck. Wanna go for a drive?”

Eddie paused, considering his options. Bill was harmless compared to Beverly, wouldn’t pry if Eddie asked him not to. He wouldn’t agree to luring Eddie into a trap either, he must have been being sincere. And who was he kidding? It was Bill. 

And apparently, he was recycling Mike’s tactics.

“Sure,” Eddie said finally, going over to the counter and grabbing a cereal bar. He glanced at his mother, but didn’t ask her permission. They had come to a sort of silent compromise over the past week that Eddie had spent at home, avoiding each other but acting more civil than they had in months. Well, at least _she_ was. She hadn’t mentioned the fact that Eddie had thrown away all the pills in the cabinet, or asked about his soulmark, and he had pretty much ignored her, because no matter what she tried to get on his good side, he wasn’t going to tell her about this. He didn’t snap at her every word though, simply because he didn’t have the capacity to worry about everything as well as that. 

What was the word that his Biology teacher had mentioned in passing last semester? Symbiotic relationship? Because that was what it was, really. No matter how similar they used to be in their fear of the unknown, the diseased, ever since Eddie had discovered that his medicine consisted of only placebos, he and his mother might as well have been different species. And now they were forced to live together, in a relationship that could, at a stretch, be described as mutually beneficial. Eddie got his solitude, Sonia kept her son from leaving completely.

Eddie still hadn’t forgiven her, probably never would, but he didn’t have any energy left to argue with her. 

It was like, now that the internal version of Eddie’s mother — the one that breathed down his neck, tried to convince him to take pills with sickly sweet words — had been banished from his brain (mostly), his real mother seemed like less of an imposing figure. Eddie wasn’t scared of her anymore, he didn’t think. Not like he used to be, how he used to be terrified of her ability to make him take the pills, use the inhaler if she wanted him to, no matter how much he wanted to refuse.

Bill offered an obligatory, “Nice to see you, Mrs. Kaspbrak,” after Eddie opened the front door, because he was polite like that, then followed him out onto the porch. Eddie squinted a little against the sun, and turned to Bill.

“So, what’s the deal? I know Bev sent you.”

“She d-didn’t, actually,” Bill said, going around the side of the truck and jumping into the driver’s seat. Eddie climbed into the passenger’s seat after him. “She asked me to, but I went of my own volition.”

“And they say chivalry is dead.” Eddie clipped in his seatbelt. “Where to?”

“Haven’t decided yet.” Bill turned the keys in the ignition, the engine sputtering for a moment, and then they were off. Eddie kind of felt like a character in a movie as he leaned his head against the window and looked out as the houses went by, watching the kids in their yards and the trees blend together to become a green blur. While pleasantly self indulgent, it did become a little boring after a while, and Eddie turned to look at the side of Bill’s face where he was watching the road. Besides, these sorts of scenes in movies required a soundtrack.

“Think Mike’s got any tapes?” He asked. Bill clucked his tongue contemplatively. 

“M-might do. Check the g-glove comp-p-partement.”

Eddie opened the compartment and rustled around for a moment, finally grasping his fingers around a familiar rectangular shape. _“A-ha,”_ He said under his breath, pulling it out from the stack of papers assembled haphazardly inside. 

He snorted when he turned over the tape. “Didn’t take Mike for a Whitney fan.”

Bill glanced at it, curious, then groaned. “Is that really all he’s g-got?”

“Apparently so,” Eddie said drily, sliding it into the dispenser. He turned the volume knob up, and suddenly the car was filled with blasting synths and electro pop as the first few bars of the song began. 

_Clock strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade…_

Bill groaned again, dragging a hand down his face. Eddie laughed as the song built up to the chorus, and nodded his head to the beat. 

_It’s the light of day that shows me how, and when the night falls, my loneliness calls…_

They blasted the tape for the rest of the drive, and Eddie watched the town go by as the streets got less populated with houses. The tape clicked through _I Will Always Love You, I’m Every Woman,_ and _How Will I Know_ as the residential streets faded into fields, the sun warming the endless corn plants and making them dry up and wilt. 

“So…” Eddie started again. “Know where we’re going now?”

“Kind of,” Bill said. They pulled into a field, the truck bumping as it drove on the lumpy grass, unfamiliar with the uneven terrain. Eddie rolled down his window to let some fresh air into the truck, and looked around at the wide expanses of fields around them. There was nothing but miles and miles of grass stretching out to the horizon from where Eddie was facing, and when he turned to look the other way, the road was barren and empty behind them, heat making the air close to the ground waver. Bill pulled the truck to a stop in the middle of the field.

“How’d you manage to get Mike to let you borrow his baby?” Eddie asked. 

Bill grimaced, as if remembering. “A l-lot of begging. And b-b-bribing.”

Eddie snorted, then opened his door, jumping out onto the tall grass. He assumed Bill would follow him, and the two of them circled around to the cargo bed at the bag. Eddie hissed slightly when his fingers brushed the hot metal of the car as he climbed up, then settled down onto the warm rubber of the back.

Bill sighed a little next to Eddie, and Eddie stiffened, preparing himself for the inevitable onslaught of questions. But instead, Bill pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. 

“The others are finally rubbing off on you, huh?” Eddie said, eyeing the lighter as Bill stuck a cigarette between his lips before lighting it. 

“I know, I know,” Bill said around the cigarette. “Poisoning my lungs or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Eddie replied. And then, on impulse, “Can I try one?”

Bill’s eyes widened in surprise, but he passed the box of cigarettes over. Eddie turned it over in his hands, reading the warning on the side of the packet. It was a terrible idea, really, but Eddie was taking risks now. He had to push against the tight restrictions he’d been set his entire life in order to be able to function like a regular human being, and what better way to do it than fill his lungs with tar and rat poison? (He actually could think of several much better ways, all ranked in order of risk, but he ignored them.)

He pulled out the cigarette, and put it in his mouth. It was lighter than he had expected, and the outer paper layer squeaked against his teeth slightly. Bill handed him the lighter, and Eddie flicked it open, setting the end of the cigarette alight. He paused, then took in a deep breath, sucking in the smoke. 

It immediately burned the back of his throat, like he had just swallowed a mixture of molten lava and battery acid in gaseous form. Eddie yanked the cigarette from his teeth, hacking and coughing as his eyes watered. Bill was laughing beside him, and Eddie smacked his shoulder, still doubled over. 

He came up for air a second later, and smashed the end of the cigarette on the rubber of the cargo bed to put the light out. “That—“ He gasped. “Was fucking _disgusting.”_

Bill was laughing so hard that tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. “Jesus _c-christ,_ Eddie,” He wiped at his eyes. “You can’t just take in a drag like that the first t-t-try!”

“Well, it would’ve been nice to have some warning,” Eddie said grumpily, crossing his arms. “I don’t even know why I did that. I have—“ But he stopped short. He had been about to say ‘I have asthma’, but that wasn’t true, was it? He glanced at Bill, who was looking at him curiously. 

“I — uh,” Eddie cleared his throat. “I mean—“ He sighed. Then, he made a decision. “Look. I need to tell you something. For a while, after I found out my medication was BS, there was a part of me that still believed my mom. About, you know, the pills. Me being sick. And — I still had them. My pills, I mean. And my inhaler.” He looked briefly at Bill, checking his reaction. Bill looked concerned, but there was no pity in his gaze. “The point is, I still had them until my birthday. I still — wanted to use them. I think. Every day, almost. And when I ran off on that day, I kind of had a freak out — I mean, you know that already — and I used my inhaler again. I don’t know what came over me. But, once I got home, I threw it away, I threw it all away, snapped the inhaler in half and everything. Even those stupid fanny packs I used to wear.” He chewed at his lip, pausing for a moment. “But yeah. I feel like I needed to get that off my chest.” He stared out at the fields, squinting in the bright light. 

Bill was quiet for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure what to say, still smoking the cigarette. He put it out in the same way Eddie had, smashing it on the rubber of the car, and seemed to decide on, “That was b-brave of you. Throwing them away.”

“Yeah, well,” Eddie kept his eyes on the horizon. “Doesn’t change the fact that I kept them all that time, when I knew that they were fake.”

“They’re g-gone now, though,” Bill pointed out, then cleared his throat. “Is that why you l-l-left then?”

“Not really,” Eddie said vaguely. Because _that_ was a whole can of worms he wasn’t ready to delve into yet. 

“B-because, I’ve had shitty experiences with soulmates too. I mean, maybe n-not the same situation, b-but you can t-t-talk about with me. It doesn’t even have to be n-now, it can be whenever.” Eddie looked back at Bill, eyebrows raised, who started talking faster, backtracking. “Or — or not, it’s fine either way. But you can trust me with it. I just wanted you to know that.”

Eddie chuckled a little. In all the chaos that had happened this summer, he’d forgotten how nice it could be to hang out with Bill. “Thanks, Bill. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“S-so it is about your soulmark?” Bill hedged.

With anyone else, Eddie would have snapped at them to go fuck themselves, but this was Bill. Bill, who had been Eddie’s best friend since first grade, the first two losers. Stuttering, sweet Bill Denbrough and angry, fanny pack wielding Eddie Kaspbrak against the world. Bill was more than Eddie’s friend, he had always been like a brother. All of the Losers had always felt like a family, a group of only children flocking together to form a tight knit bond, creating their _own_ family, one they could choose. They were Eddie's family more than his mother would ever be. 

Well, except Richie. That was different. Eddie knew that now, had probably always known that.

Maybe Bill would tell him what had happened with Beverly one day, maybe Eddie would even tell him about his soulmark when they would be able to laugh about it. But for now: 

“Yep,” Eddie said, rubbing his collarbone where it had started to tingle. “You could say that.”

  
  
  
  


After Eddie got back that night, he felt energised in a way he hadn’t since his birthday. Telling Bill about the pills had given him a surge of nervous-slash-excited energy that he couldn’t seem to rid himself of, and he knew that he had to get out of the house, that he’d been cooped up too long. He had to stretch his legs, walk around for a bit, maybe gather his thoughts. He knew the risks. Scenario one: run into Stan, get murdered in cold blood. Scenario two: run into Bev, try to withstand the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. Scenario three: run into Richie, die on the spot. So. Obviously not great options. 

But the odds were slim, right? How bad would Eddie’s luck have to be to run into one of those three on a trip into town? (Pretty average, given how small the town was—) Besides, it was nearly dark by the time Eddie had worked up the courage to leave the house, and he snuck out his window again, slipping down the drainpipe. Richie apparently had had the right idea, it was a fairly easy way to get to Eddie’s room without detection. And _nope,_ he was going to stop that train of thought right there, thank you very much. 

Eddie had a brief moment of sanity on his way out, questioning what the fuck he actually though was going to do once he was in town, especially considering the fact that he could very well be murdered, but then the other side of his mind — the one that had been majorly in control since Eddie had broken free of the pills and inhaler — had smacked that thought upside the head, insisting that it wasn’t even properly dark yet, it was barely eight o’clock in the evening, for christ’s sake! That voice sounded suspiciously like Richie, which Eddie didn’t bother dissecting, too preoccupied with trying not to wake his mother. 

He considered taking his bike, but his house was so near to main street that it wasn’t worth the hassle or the potential noise. Eddie walked with his hands in his jean pockets, and it felt weird to be walking around at night. It was so quiet, not even bird noises disrupting the silence, and all the lights were out in the windows of the houses he passed. The sky was a deep blue, and there was only a sliver of light stubbornly hanging onto the horizon as Eddie turned onto the high street.

The main source of light was coming from the lampposts, but also the gas station, the fluorescent strip lights above the gas pumps shining out onto the street, flooding it with a wash of white. It was still impossibly hot, and it was a relief to walk into the 24 hour convenience store with a gust of air conditioner on the way in. Eddie had made up his mind on the way there that he was going to buy something at the store, browse a little, then go back home. Sure, it might’ve been contradictory to micromanage his mini teenage rebellion trip, but there was only so many lengths Eddie would go to in one night to free himself from the grasp of routine. 

There was soft music playing as Eddie went down the aisles, not looking for anything in particular. He picked up a few things, looking at the back of the packets, feeling pretty awkward, even though there was no one in sight apart from the half asleep college student behind the counter Eddie had seen on his way in. Eddie stopped at a stack of Arizona Iced Tea, hovered for a moment, observing the colourfully painted cans, then grabbed one. He’d never had it before, too concerned with the sugar content, and so now he picked the one that looked like it had the most calories in it. There was the sound of the bell ringing as someone else entered the store, but Eddie continued down the aisles, feeling a little more at ease. His collarbone itched a little, and he scratched at it idly as he moved down the vegetable aisle, no plans to actually buy anything there. 

It was nice, being in the store without any real responsibilities or things to do. Just a few weeks ago Eddie would have scoffed at the thought of just _wandering,_ with no real purpose, but right now it was relaxing, soothing even, the quietness of the store at night like a blanket over his ears. Eddie rounded onto the next aisle, and caught sight of a basket of discount records. Interest piquing, he walked over, sifting through the pile to see if there was anything interesting. Queen, ABBA, Madonna. The usuals. Eddie moved away from the pile, disappointed, and turned to go down the next aisle, then froze. 

Standing at the other end of the aisle, wearing a stupid hawaiian shirt and a shocked look on his face, was Richie. 

Eddie felt the blood drain from his face, and his palms began to sweat as they stood, unmoving, staring at each other. 

Eddie felt like there was a big white spotlight shining onto his collarbone, a big lit up arrow pointing to it and telling Richie _Look at this! Look at this!_ He couldn’t move, rooted to the spot, trapped in Richie’s gaze, and was terrified that any movement would give it all away, somehow bare his soulmark and biggest secret to the whole world.

What the fuck was he supposed to do? What could he say? ‘Hi Richie, sorry for screaming in your face for no reason and then going off the grid for a week, what can you do, huh? It is what it is,’ was not sounding like a great prospect in Eddie’s head right now. Neither was ‘Hiya Richie, turns out I’m your soulmate and have had a big gay crush on you for the majority of the time we’ve known each other! What a world, right?’

Richie’s whole body was tense, guarded, and even from this distance Eddie could see that his jaw was clenched tight. He seemed to be caught in a moment of indecision, feet planted as if they couldn’t decide whether to take him forwards or far, far away.

But before Eddie could even begin to draft up another thing to say in his head, Richie broke their eye contact, turned, and walked out of the aisle without another word. Eddie stared after him, his face burning with something akin to embarrassment, maybe a hint of shame, watching Richie’s retreating back as he went over to another aisle. Eddie almost wanted to race after him, to apologise, but what excuse could he even make? Anything but the truth sounded so obviously like a lie, how else would Eddie explain what had happened? But that was out of the question, obviously, and Eddie stared after Richie desperately as he disappeared down another aisle. Before he had turned his expression had been unreadable, shuttered off, unlike Eddie had ever seen it before, and he tried desperately to erase it from his mind. Richie was better off without Eddie anyway.

Eddie fumbled with the can of iced tea, and ultimately decided that this had been quite enough of teenage rebellion for one night. He did, however, come out tonight for a specific reason, and nothing was going to stop him from buying the stupid overly sweetened trash. He stuck his head out of the aisle and looked both ways, to see if Richie was there. He wasn’t, and so Eddie relaxed slightly as he made his way up to the counter, condensation forming where his hand gripped the metal.

Richie didn’t know about the soulmark, Eddie could tell as much. He felt awful, couldn’t stand to think of how Richie had reacted the last two times they had seen each other, couldn’t stand to think about the repercussions of this. Richie had no idea why Eddie was acting like this, had no explanation. He was probably confused, and angry, waiting for an apology Eddie couldn’t seem to get beyond his lips, for fear of the truth becoming clear.

Apparently, Eddie’s luck was still nonexistent, because when he got to the cash register, he saw that Richie was standing there, paying for something. Eddie stopped, but Richie hadn’t noticed him yet. At this point, he could have still turned and left, hid in the aisles until Richie was gone, or even left the store all together without the iced tea that he didn’t even want. 

But Eddie’s moment of indecision lasted just a second too long, because then Richie was glancing behind him, catching sight of Eddie. His eyes widened a fraction, then he jerked his head back to face the front, and Eddie figured that there was no point hiding now—Richie already knew he was here. 

The walk to the cash register seemed to last a century. The entire store was silent as the blissfully ignorant cashier scanned Richie’s items, and Eddie stood a good few metres away from Richie, an attempt at a line. Richie wasn’t looking at Eddie, but Eddie could tell that he was watching him out of the corner of his eye, because he was making that face he always made when he passed Eddie notes in study hall, watching for his reaction without tipping off the teacher. His head was tilted slightly, and his eyes motionless compared to the way that he normally flitted them about restlessly, not able to focus on a singular object.

The cashier said something that Eddie didn’t register, too lost in his own thoughts, and Richie handed a dollar bill to her before taking his things and walking away. Eddie knew he was supposed to go towards the counter now, pay for his own stuff, but Richie was _right there_ and they hadn’t had a proper conversation in at least two weeks, so as Richie opened the door out with a soft ring of the bell overhead, Eddie set the can on the counter with a _clang_ and rushed out after him in a blind act of desperation.

The air was humid, a stark contrast to the coolness of the store, and Eddie burst through the door before it had even shut behind Richie, grabbing his wrist. Richie jumped, and whirled around to face Eddie, scowling. 

“What?” Richie snapped. He was pissed, and rightfully so.

Eddie realised that he hadn’t actually planned this far ahead, and mouthed silently like a fish, opening and closing it without a sound coming out. The door shut behind him.

Richie watched him, waiting for a response. He didn’t pull his arm away. 

Eddie’s brain helpfully recycled the responses he’d sarcastically come up with earlier, but when he pushed them to the side, all he could come up with was: 

“Why are you buying toothpaste at nine PM?” 

What the fuck? Why would he say that? Eddie wanted to smack his own face in frustration, but his brain only came back with _well, you rejected all the other options, what else was there to say?_

Richie blinked. “Why am I buying toothpaste at nine PM,” He repeated. 

Eddie’s mouth picked up on the lack of general activity in the area of his brain designed to come up with responses, and began to take charge. “Well, did you not realise that you needed it earlier? Surely you saw this morning you ran out, why didn’t you get it during the day?”

“Why didn’t I—“ Richie stopped. “Sorry, what is going on right now?”

“Well, isn’t it an oversight to not remember to get it until nighttime?”

“No, not that.” Richie’s voice was incredulous. “Did you bang your head or something? Forget the past week?”

“I—“ Eddie shut his mouth with a snap, no longer willing to let it run on overdrive.

“Yeah.” Richie’s smile was bitter. “Didn't think so.”

Eddie swallowed, and watched him nervously. Richie stared right back, his gaze a challenge. Waiting. For an explanation, probably. Which Eddie couldn’t give. 

Eddie felt a muscle in his jaw jump, a nervous tic, and Richie’s eyes flicked over it, narrowing slightly. 

Neither of them said a word. 

Eddie remembered suddenly that Richie’s wrist was still in his grip. His hand was probably sweaty—or if it wasn’t, it would be soon. His tongue was too thick in his mouth, couldn’t move, his lips unable to form words. His collarbone didn’t itch now, it burned, and Eddie wanted desperately to clasp a hand to it. 

Richie kept his eyes trained on Eddie, blinking behind his glasses. The air was too heavy, pressing down on Eddie and threatening to crush him.

After another moment of silence, Richie’s mouth twisted. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this.” 

He yanked his arm from Eddie’s grip and stalked off, leaving Eddie to watch Richie’s retreating back helplessly for the umpteenth time this summer.

Eddie got back to his house without any further altercations, the iced tea forgotten. On the walk back, it occurred to him that the situation at the store had been uncannily similar to what had happened in the woods on his birthday, which didn’t make him feel any better. In both instances, he’d failed to solve the situation; had only made it worse. It was as easy to enter his room as it had been to leave it, and when he collapsed onto his bed he felt something poking through his jacket. He frowned, and stuck his hand in his pocket, pulling out -- oh. 

The mixtape. 

He’d almost forgotten about that after all the drama that had ensued after Richie had given it to him. 

Eddie was suddenly presented with a mental image of Richie in the store earlier. 

He’d looked -- well, he’d looked pretty tired, but beyond that, he’d still looked so -- so Richie. Still the same mop of dark hair, the same thick glasses that magnified his eyes a little, the same long legs that he hadn’t grown into yet. Eddie groaned, pulling his pillow over his face, trying to think about something else. Richie wasn’t even a typically attractive person, not objectively _hot_ like the people on TV, and yet he still managed to live in Eddie’s head constantly, more so now that he had recognised why. Richie’s eyes. Richie’s jaw. Richie’s shoulders, bare in the sunlight of the Quarry. _Why_ had Eddie been cursed like this? Why couldn’t he look at the girls at school, at their loose, long hair, their soft curves, and want them? Why did it have to be _Richie,_ all sharp angles and too-long limbs and messy hair that Eddie wanted to run his fingers through? He rolled onto his side, glaring at the mixtape next to him. 

If only Richie had been a girl. Or — or Eddie had been a girl. But — no, that still didn’t work. Eddie shook his head slightly. No matter what, Eddie was still going to be drawn to boys rather than girls. Then maybe, if Eddie had had a soulmate that was still a boy, but somewhere far away, where they could actually be themselves. Anywhere but Derry. But again, that didn’t appeal to Eddie. It was always going to be Richie, with his idiotic jokes and disgusting habits and his stupidly lopsided smile. If only -- Eddie sighed. If only Richie was his soulmate back. If only he had someone else that was in the same boat as him, that understood what he was going through. But no, Eddie was apparently destined to pine after someone who would always belong to someone else, who would never want him back. 

God, what a morbid prospect. 

Eddie sat up, picking up the mixtape and looking at it again. How had Richie managed to make ‘Listen to it, Asshole!’ sound affectionate? He traced his fingertip over the words again, at the handwriting that was now tattooed on his skin forever. Even if Eddie had wanted to listen to the tape, his walkman was broken, and the new one was presumably back in the clubhouse where he had left it on his birthday. 

What he wouldn’t give rewind back to a few weeks ago, before Bev’s birthday, before everything had gone to shit. He missed that back and forth he had had with Richie, the little jabs that they threw at each other, the way they riled each other up until Eddie was breathless and fire ran through his veins. He probably wouldn’t ever get that back now. 

_Why_ did Eddie’s life have to be so complicated? He literally could never catch a break, ever. First it was his mom and the pills, and when he finally thought he was breaking free of that, his soulmark and the news that he had apparently been in love with his best friend this whole time without realising it? Surely he must have had enough major life upheavals by now. 

Surely.

  
  
  
  
  


The next morning, Eddie wandered around the empty house, his mother out at a coffee morning with a few friends. The house felt different without anyone else inside, and Eddie realised that this was probably the first time that his mother had left him in the house by himself in a long time. It was weird, because surely the house was the safest place to be, right? But Eddie always thought it was less of a matter of safety, and more because his mother never really left the house that often. Eddie didn’t actually know who these friends were that she was out with, or when she had met them, so she must have been going out on the days that Eddie had spent with the others out at the Quarry, or back when he was at school. He wasn’t sure. He and his mother didn’t talk much. 

Eddie ate his cereal quietly, and flicked on the radio halfway through when he began to get bored of the silence. A song was playing that Eddie had never heard before, and he nodded along as he crunched on his cornflakes. Around the second chorus, a thought occurred to Eddie, and he sat on it for a moment, turning it over in his head. There must have been books on soulmates in the library, right? He had all day to himself, and he would get bored sitting around the house eventually. Maybe he could do some research. 

He rode out to the library a little while later, and he felt like there were thousands of pairs of eyes watching him as he walked into the ‘soulmates’ section. In all the time that Eddie had been here throughout the summer so far, he had never actually been into this section, hadn’t thought it was important. Was that suspicious, that he was suddenly taking an interest in it? Was he being too conspicuous? Was it obvious through the way he hesitated at different books, picked out ones that looked more ambiguous with the wording of the genders? And what about the fact that he was acting on edge, like he was waiting to be caught out? Surely someone had noticed how nervous he was, and had come to the right conclusion. Eddie glanced around behind him nervously, but no one was looking at him. 

He took a small stack of books with him to a table hidden behind a bookshelf at the end of the room, far away from the door, and began to read. Most of the books looked brand new, like they hadn’t been touched, and all the due dates stamped on the front were from years ago. Eddie made his way through three books in the first sitting, and most of the information was stuff he already knew. Stuff about the science behind it, the theories, compatibility, attraction. Something caught his eye though: an aside about unrequited soulmates which made his face burn (‘although the cause is unknown, this rare occurrence often results in mental health problems and unaddressed emotional repression, and it is encouraged for the owner of this unrequited soulmark to gain closure-‘), but also a small paragraph in another book about how soulmarks could actually change given enough time and if the people changed enough. Eddie snapped that book shut, not letting himself consider the possibility of a) his soulmark changing to someone else or b) Richie’s soulmark changing to… no. It wasn’t worth considering.

He went back to the section once he was done with the first pile of books, and took out another few. These were more helpful, and he found a section on same-sex soulmates in a relatively new book tucked inside another. 

_While it is widely assumed that soulmates are always a woman and a man, that is not always the case. Soulmarks shared between two men or two women is not unheard of, and while the majority of the public do not approve of these relations, scientists are insisting more and more that these soulmates should be accepted by society. Dr. Tristan Wisneski, a specialist in the study of soulmates, is an advocate for same-sex soulmates, and claims that the misinformation surrounding the AIDS epidemic is a chief reason for misconceptions about homosexuals and their relationships in our day and age. “These are people too,” Wisneski said during an interview with the Times. “Just because they love a different gender than most people do, [that] doesn’t mean they should be mistreated. Soulmates aren’t supposed to be a matter dissected and treated in different ways due to who or how we love. It’s simply a connection that we as scientists don’t even properly understand yet, two people who are brought together by an unknown force. Why do some people think they have a right to police what’s acceptable and what isn’t?”_

Eddie set the book down after reading that, his hands shaking slightly. So, did that mean that — that there were people out there who weren’t completely against people like Eddie? People who didn’t scream slurs at them, didn’t think they were inherently wrong, people like this doctor, who not only accepted them, but actively fought for them? That — that was a thing? There were _scientists,_ soulmate specialists that wanted to help him?

And what was this about misinformation? Eddie’s mother had drilled facts about AIDS into his head for years, had made him afraid of so many mundane tasks. Had she lied about all of that? How much of Eddie’s denial about his sexuality was down to his mother’s berating?

He closed his eyes, his mind racing. This was… this was too much to think about. 

Eddie almost wanted proof that there were actually scientists like that, and his eyes drifted momentarily over to the computer room, but then he shook himself out of it. He couldn’t just go and look stuff like that up on internet explorer in public, there were people in the library that could look over his shoulder at any time. Besides, Eddie still hardly knew how to use those clunky things, even after they had arrived a few years ago in a big shipment into Derry.

Eddie gathered up his pile of books, and went to go set them back on the shelves. He’d been at the library a good few hours, and it must have been late afternoon by now, judging by the position of the sun in the sky outside the window. Eddie paused for a moment, considering, and then:

“Eddie?” Eddie spun around. It was Ben. 

He cringed internally. How had he not foreseen Ben being at the library? Ben spent practically _all_ his time here. “Hi, Ben,” Eddie said nervously, hoping that Ben hadn’t seen the books that he’d just put away. He’d pushed them to the back, so the odds were slim, but then again, since when had Eddie’s luck been any good? 

Ben fidgeted with the book he was holding. “I didn’t think that you were going to the library anymore.”

“Well, I wasn’t for a while,” Eddie replied.

Ben nodded, and they both were quiet for a moment. Ben’s face was red, and he continued to fidget with the book he was holding. Eddie couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him until he realised: Ben was in the soulmates section of the library as well. After a glance at the book Ben was holding, sure enough, it was about soulmates. It was actually one that Eddie had been reading earlier. 

Eddie steeled himself, then said, “That one isn’t any good. It’s all about the theories, no actual facts or helpful information.” An olive branch, extended out. There was no confirmation of anything, just the tentative offer. 

Ben paused, then his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh,” He said. “Right.” He smiled slightly. “I thought that, too. The writer’s ego is pretty big. Got any suggestions?”

“Yeah, actually,” Eddie turned and pulled out another book from the shelf behind him. “Here.” He held it out, and Ben took it. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” Ben tucked the book under his arm. “I came here after Stan’s. He was a little preoccupied with—“ He stopped. “Well. He was preoccupied. Why, have you been here a while?”

“Yep,” Eddie said. He pointed over to his table, which was still stacked with soulmate books, now visible from where they were standing. “Came to do some research.”

“Uh huh,” Ben said slowly, like he was mulling something over in his head. Then, “Mind if I sit with you?”

Eddie blinked, mentally going over the risks in his head. The most incriminating books were already tucked back in the shelves, and Ben already knew he was looking at soulmate stuff, so, fuck it. “Sure,” He said, and started over to the table, Ben following behind. The library was almost empty now, most of the tables vacated in the time that Eddie had spent in his little corner. 

Ben sat opposite Eddie, shifting a few books out of the way. He picked one up, and read the title. “So…” He said casually. “Soulmate section?”

Eddie swallowed. “What about it?”

Ben gave him a look. 

Eddie sighed. “So, I’m guessing Bill told you guys that I told him the whole freak out was about soulmates?”

“No,” Ben shook his head, a thoughtful look crossing his face. “But you just did.”

Eddie groaned. “Jesus, Ben.” He dropped his head onto his chest. But then a thought occurred to him, and he lifted his head, narrowing his eyes. Well, two could play at that game. “Anyway, what were _you_ doing in the soulmates section?”

Ben immediately clammed up. “No reason.”

“Right.” Eddie raised his eyebrows, and Ben blushed. The two of them had reached a silent standoff, neither of them willing to back down. Eddie crossed his arms, knowing that Ben would break first. 

And he did. “Well, I was doing some research too.” Ben admitted. 

“I pretty much deduced that.”

“I—“ Ben stopped. He leaned forwards, lowering his voice. “I need to tell you something, and you have to keep it a secret.”

Eddie leaned back in his chair. “Shoot.”

“It’s about my soulmark. The thing is, well,” Ben took a deep breath. _“Beverlyismysoulmate.”_ He blurted the words out in a rush, and it took Eddie a minute to process the words. 

He blinked. “Okay.”

Ben widened his eyes. “That’s it? Just ‘okay’?”

“Well, yeah,” Eddie said. “I’d pretty much worked it out.”

“What?” Ben’s expression became one of horror. “You already knew? Does anyone else?”

“Uh, pretty much. You weren’t exactly subtle.” Eddie winced. “But, I don’t think Bev knows. Or Bill.”

Ben exhaled. “Right.” He rubbed a hand over his face. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie offered. “I get it. Don’t worry, no one will tell them.” 

“Thanks,” Ben said, and gave him a weak smile. 

“Where’s your soulmark?” Eddie asked. He hadn’t seen it when they all went down to the Quarry, so it must've been hidden.

“Uh, on my hip,” Ben blushed again. 

It wasn’t like Eddie didn’t already pretty much know what Ben’s soulmark read, but the confirmation was nice. And it was comforting, to know that someone else was struggling with keeping their soulmark secret.

That struck Eddie, the gears in his head faltering a second. How long would he have to keep his soulmark secret? He’d originally planned on taking it to the grave, but that passage in the book was… news. He looked over at Ben. He didn’t know whether he would be able to keep it a secret forever. It would eat him up, keeping something so important close to his chest.

Ben did little research projects at the library, which Eddie had learned in the days he spent with him earlier in the summer. He’d read up on Egyptian Mythology, World War One, and Eighteenth Century poets in the days that it took Eddie to finish _Macbeth._ Eddie wondered if Ben had done anything on soulmates before. Ben was fairly worldly, was he like that doctor, who didn’t care about same-sex soulmates, who wanted the best for them? Eddie considered it in his head, and all he could think was that he could never imagine Ben, who read poetry and spoke excitedly with Bev about feminist literature — something she had discovered earlier that year — being hateful about something like this. Ben just wasn’t like that. 

Eddie swallowed. “Um,” Ben looked up. Eddie cleared his throat. “I was doing some research too. About, you know, soulmates.”

Ben nodded, and Eddie continued on. “Because — because—“ He glanced furtively around the library. Still empty. He screwed his eyes shut, bracing himself and said, “I’m gay.” 

Two words. Probably the smallest sentence Eddie had ever said, and yet it was the most important. It almost felt like an anticlimax, like there should have been a hugely over-emotional speech instead. Was this another tipping point? 

Ben was quiet for a moment. “Oh,” He said faintly, but there wasn’t any malice that he could detect. Eddie opened his eyes slightly, and Ben simply looked — surprised. “Right. Cool.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie wiped his hands on his shorts under the table, his hands still shaking. “Cool.”

“How — how did you know?”

Well, he’d already gotten the hard part over with. Might as well dig the knife a little deeper. “Here’s the kicker.” Eddie pulled aside his t-shirt collar, where his soulmark was visible, and Ben looked over at it, confused.

A beat, and then his eyes widened, going as round as he realised whose initials they were. “Shit,” He said softly. And if Ben Hanscom was swearing, that definitely said something about the situation.

“Guess we’re in the same boat, huh.” Eddie let go of his collar. 

“You know,” Ben said. “That actually explains a lot.”

Eddie laughed a little hysterically. “You _think?”_

“Hey.” Ben’s voice was more serious. “You know that this doesn’t change anything, right? You’re still the same person, I’d never treat you any differently.”

Eddie felt his eyes sting. God, he was doing so much crying recently. “Thanks, Ben.”

“No problem.”

  
  
  
  


After that, Eddie began going to the library again with Ben. 

It was nice, to have some semblance of the old routine back. They would go to their table in the corner, and Eddie would pick some book that Ben suggested, reading while Ben worked through various random phases of info collecting. Eddie found himself being able to go through books faster and faster, bringing them home and using them to fill the heavy silences whenever he and his mother were in the house.

Also, none of the other Losers would ever come into the library, so. There was that. 

Eddie had been part way through _David Copperfield_ one morning when Ben had arrived, carrying a stack of magazines. Eddie had watched as Ben set them down, then picked one up, so that the cover was visible from across the table. 

“Fashion magazines?”

Ben had gone red. “Just some background stuff.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Eddie had grinned, then gone back to his book. Ben had apparently found his next topic of research.

Make no mistake, Eddie was still plagued with thoughts of Richie and his soulmark and general existential dread, but telling Ben about it was probably one of the best decisions he had ever made. He was beginning to feel comfortable with himself -- at least around Ben, anyway. 

And not once did Eddie regret throwing away the inhaler and pills. 

Well, sometimes he felt the phantom tightening of his airway, the impending headache threatening to arrive, but as soon as he even thought of how convenient it would be if he had a pill to swallow, an inhaler to take a puff of, he cast the thoughts away before they could spiral any more.

Sometimes Eddie would wake up at night with his collarbone burning, a cold sweat covering his whole body. He didn’t know what caused it, and he mentioned it in passing to Ben, who said it was probably the humidity. 

Salt rock lamps were supposed to help with the air in houses, right? And Eddie had left it at the clubhouse, along with the rest of the presents. He said as much to Ben one day:

“Hey, you know how I left all my birthday presents behind at the clubhouse? They’re still there, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Ben put down his book. “They’re still there. I almost forgot about them. We can go get them later, if you want.”

“Uh,” Eddie grimaced. “Would the others be there?”

“Don’t think so. But,” Ben sighed. “Are you planning on talking to Richie any time soon?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I fucked up, right? And besides, it’s not like I can tell him why I freaked out.”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Ben said. “But we all miss you, Eddie. It’s not the same without you. We’re going to end up wasting the whole summer being messed up over soulmates. Maybe you could talk it out with Richie, make up? You don’t even have to tell him. But — he’s been pretty upset about the whole thing.”

“Right,” Eddie sighed. “It’s just — it was such a shitty thing to do.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “But you can still fix it.”

Around noon, they left the library, and instead of turning into the streets populated by houses like usual, they went in the opposite direction, to the woods. It was warm, and they wheeled their bikes instead of riding them. Eddie was nervous about going back to the clubhouse, but Ben had said that the rest of them were at the Barrens today, so it must have been safe. Still, that didn’t stop Eddie’s heart beating faster than usual. 

They left their bikes on the road by the gate, and walked through the woods. Eddie mentally went through the list of presents in his head so that when he got there he could grab them and leave as quick as possible: the book, the bell, the card, the lamp, and the walkman. Easy. Apparently the cakes had been thrown away, but that was the price of running out on your own birthday party. 

Eddie stopped at the trapdoor, and let Ben go down first. Eddie followed, and when he jumped down, Ben said: “Oh — Stan! I thought you guys were down at the Barrens today.”

Eddie froze, and turned around with a wince, meeting the icy stare of Stanley Uris. He was standing over by the hammock, and there was an open bag by his feet. 

“We were,” Stan replied coolly. “Only I left my stuff here, so I had to go back. How convenient as well, I didn’t think that Eddie was bothering to grace us with his presence anymore.”

“Hi, Stan.” Eddie watched him nervously. 

“You know, this is very opportune,” Stan continued, bending down and zipping the bag, before hoisting it on his shoulder. “I was actually hoping to talk to Eddie, if he ever emerged from his cave.”

“Oh, we were just getting his stuff,” Ben said quickly. “We don’t want to keep you—“

“Don’t worry,” Stan said, a terrifyingly calm smile on his face. “I’ll wait for you guys.”

Eddie and Ben went over to the table tucked in the corner to gather up the things, and Eddie didn’t dare turn his back on Stan, who had kept the angelic smile plastered on his face as he watched them. The smile was more terrifying than anything Eddie had ever seen.

They gathered the lamp, the book, the bell and the card into a bag that Eddie had brought, and Eddie shoved the walkman into his pocket. Then, the three of them went back up the ladder. Ben hovered nervously as Stan was the last one up the ladder.

“It’s okay, Ben,” Eddie said. “You can go.”

“Right,” Ben nodded, sagging with relief, and took off as fast as his legs could take him. Traitor. 

Eddie turned back to Stan. “Let’s take a walk,” Stan suggested icily. He strode off surprisingly quickly, and Eddie jogged to catch him up. They walked in silence for a moment, the only noise the crunching of the leaves on the forest floor beneath them. The forest was pretty, the sun filtering through the leaves and creating a tapestry of light on the ground. It was a little hard to concentrate on that right now, though.

“So,” Stan said finally. “You got anything to say?”

Eddie sighed. “I think you already know the answer to that.” 

At the speed they had been walking, they were already at the edge of the woods, near the kissing bridge. The woods opened up just ahead.

“Okay,” Stan said, stopping. “Here’s the deal. You either apologise to Richie and explain yourself, or I kick your ass.”

Eddie blanched. “What?”

“You heard me,” Stan said calmly. “You haven’t had to see Richie walk around like a dead man for the past week and a half. He told me you saw each other at the store, you know. That was a fun little conversation, huh?” When Eddie didn’t say anything, Stan continued. “You really messed Richie up. Bev and I have had to do damage control, and if I wasn’t here then she would be, and she’s not as nice.”

Eddie shook his head. “You don’t know half of what’s going on.”

“Oh yeah? Then explain.” Stan put his hands on his hips. “Because we’ve got all the time in the world, and I want answers.”

Eddie clenched his jaw. “It’s complicated.” When Stan snorted, he insisted, “No, it is! Long story short, I had a freak out because of my soulmark, and I took it out on Richie. It was wrong, and I feel terrible, and I _will_ apologise. I just need to — gather my thoughts.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and his hand brushed the walkman, which caused his stupid heart to miss a beat. He walked a little ways out of the forest, over to the kissing bridge, and sat on the edge, his legs dangling over the side. He didn’t have to look to know that Stan had followed him. It was much sunnier out of the woods, and Eddie looked down at the water.

“What was so terrible about your soulmark?” Stan asked, sitting down next to him and raising an eyebrow. 

Eddie looked out at the river. “It’s not — it doesn’t matter.”

“Really? Because it gave you such a shock that made you have a psychologically-induced asthma attack, so I would say it’s pretty important.”

Eddie clenched his fists. “Don’t joke about that.”

“I wasn’t,” Stan replied. Then, quieter, “Bill told me you threw the stuff away. That was brave of you.”

“Was it?” Eddie snapped. “Because, to be honest, people keep telling me I’m being brave, but it doesn’t feel like it.” He glared at the wooden planks on the bridge, at the carvings of all the happy soulmates in Derry, his eyes flicking over them. A+C, W+J, R+E, T+K, J+P. Those small letters representing something much bigger. His eyes snagged momentarily on R+E, but then he remembered that Rose Blake and Erik Sovika had been dating since Freshman Year. _If only._ He was really grasping at straws now. 

Why couldn’t Eddie have something good for once? Why did he always have to get the short end of the stick? 

Stan’s hand settled on his shoulder, tentative. He had never been good with these sorts of situations, but he was trying. “You are,” Stan said simply. “It might not feel like it at the time, but every step is important. So don’t disregard it.”

Eddie turned to face Stan again. “When did you get so wise?”

“Haven’t you heard? I was born like this.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Right. How could I forget?”

Stan’s hand slipped off his shoulder, and both of them watched the river run, glistening in the sunlight where it hit the rocks that were just too tall that they broke the water surface. 

“You know,” Stan said. “You can trust us with anything, right? Like, the stuff with your pills? It’s always easier to deal with these things when someone else is there to help you.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Eddie replied.

“Also, you need to stop avoiding Richie. His whole ‘woe is me’ routine is exhausting, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. I know Bev is at her breaking point.”

“I’ll bet.” Beverly was not known for her patience. Eddie tried to imagine her trying to deal with zombie Richie, the version who had ignored Eddie for the weeks before his birthday, and grinned slightly despite himself.

“Also, the group is totally out of balance. You’re never there, Richie’s all mopey, and I do _not_ want to know what happened between Bev and Bill, but frankly I’m tired of it. I feel like Mike and I are the only ones who haven’t completely lost it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I need you and Richie fighting in the corner to keep me sane.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Eddie said, and then pulled his legs back up on the bridge so that he could stand up.

“So you’ll come back?” Stan stood too. 

“What the fuck,” Eddie threw up his hands. “Sure. I’ll come tomorrow.”

  
  
  
  
  


So, that was a decision that Eddie was deeply regretting now. 

He’d fretted all morning about it, since the moment he had woken with a jolt of anxiety, to the present moment that he was now leaving his house at. 

For fuck’s sake, he worried about what he was _wearing._ Sure, it was going to be nice to see the others, but with that was the promise of Richie, and the shitshow that Eddie was willingly walking into. He hadn’t even worked out what he was going to say yet. He definitely was _not_ going to tell anyone else about his soulmark, but how else would he explain it? Ben and Bev still hadn’t shown their soulmarks to anyone, so maybe he could just say he wasn’t ready to talk about it. Was that suspicious, though? Eddie had been very clearly distraught when he got the soulmark, so what other explanation could there be for not wanting to show them about it, unless it was someone they all knew? 

It made his head hurt thinking about it. He spent all morning agonising over it, and he hadn’t come up with anything by the time the clock hit ten o’clock and it was time to go to the clubhouse. 

His entire body was thrumming with anxious energy as he left the house, and it felt like there were two warring sides of Eddie’s brain, one kicking and screaming and begging him to turn back, and the other strangely calm, acceptant. He walked down to the woods with a sense of Déjà vu for yesterday, when he’d gone down to the woods with Ben. But his apprehension yesterday was laughable compared to the situation Eddie was facing now.

Eddie stopped a few feet away from the trapdoor, and took a shaky breath. He could hear the noise of conversation just below. 

Okay. Just — rip the bandaid off. 

He climbed down as fast as he could, so that he wouldn’t have his back to them for too long. The rungs on the ladder creaked slightly, and Eddie turned to find that everyone had fallen silent. He was the last one there.

Six pairs of eyes were trained on him, and Eddie floundered for something to say. His eyes found Richie’s, who was watching him with an unreadable expression, and Eddie swallowed nervously. 

He could feel a stress headache coming on, but there was something else. The room smelled stale, dank. Was that — cigarette smoke?

“It smells disgusting in here.” 

The tension broke. 

“Yeah, that’s because _someone_ was smoking,” Stan said from the hammock. He turned to glare at Beverly. 

She threw up her hands. “I think you’ll find it was _Bill,_ Stanley.”

“Hey!” Bill protested. “You smoke in here all the time.”

“A week and a half, and this whole place goes to shit,” Eddie muttered, eyeing mold growing on the ladder. “Do any of you actually care that you could contract diseases? Or is this some kind of fad where it’s cool now? Because I am _not_ sitting in here if one of you got fucking lung cancer or something.”

“I wasn’t aware that lung cancer was contagious,” Stan said.

“Yeah, well, knowing this place it probably mutated. Who _knows_ what kind of shit is growing in here? Jesus, I can’t believe I ever thought this place was safe.” Eddie was on a roll now, his anxious energy being compartmented into a rant about safety measures, something he could control. Something familiar. “And — and look at this.” Eddie pushed at one of the support poles, and the room shook slightly. “No offense, Ben, but this does not feel very stable. Didn’t you build this when we were like, thirteen?”

“Uh—“ 

“That’s what I thought. This place will probably fall on top of us one of these days, and then what will we do? No more hangouts in the hole in the ground in the middle of the woods, no more—“

“Eddie?” Eddie paused for breath, and looked at Bev, who was looking at him wryly. “You finished yet?”

Eddie realised how long and how fast he had been talking, and his face went red. He was still standing by the ladder. “Right,” He muttered. Picked on random, Eddie went over to go sit by Mike, the least likely to make a snide remark. He stared at the floor in embarrassment.

They were still quiet, all of them unmoving, not doing anything, the room still thick with tension. Eddie felt like there was something he was forgetting in his embarrassment, and it came to him suddenly. 

“Richie,” He said suddenly. It was like the words had been dragged out of his mouth of their own accord, and everyone looked at him. Eddie was looking at Richie, though, who was wearing a half surprised, half wary expression across the room, leaning against the wall. Eddie was kind of shocked at himself, too. Oh well, there was no turning back now. “I — I’m sorry about before. I had a freak out, and I took it out on you. It wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.”

Richie was silent for a moment, and Eddie watched him anxiously. No one moved. After a long pause, Richie said quietly, “That’s okay, Eds.”

“No,” Eddie stressed. “It’s not. It was wrong, and I was completely out of line. You didn’t deserve it, and you didn’t deserve it when I hid in my house without any explanation. None of you did,” He addressed the room. “And you don’t have to like, forgive me or anything. I just wanted to tell you all that.”

“It’s f-fine, Eddie,” Bill piped up. “You don’t have to apologise. We all have our moments.”

“Yeah, you think you’re the only one that had a freak out on your birthday?” Bev added.

“Yeah Eddie,” Richie said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but was grinning. _Richie’s back._

They stayed in the clubhouse for the rest of the afternoon, and Eddie felt better than he had in weeks. Things seemed to finally be settling down, the first tumultuous half of the summer over with, the rest stretching ahead with a promise of some peace and quiet.

At one point, Eddie got up and went to sit by Richie. He nudged him with his elbow, and slid down the wall to sit. “Move over.”

“Yeesh, okay,” Richie shifted to the side. They were squished together in such a small corner that it was impossible to avoid the brushing of their legs together. 

Eddie didn’t say anything, and because it was Richie, he had to fill the silence. “So…” He trailed off. “Are we good?” 

Eddie turned to him, incredulous. “You know that’s supposed to be my line, right?”

“Eh, maybe,” Richie allowed. “But we were both kind of dicks.”

“I mean, I guess,” Eddie scratched absentmindedly at his collarbone. “Kind of pulled the same thing on each other. The avoiding.”

“There’s gotta be some BIDMAS shit in there somewhere,” Richie remarked. “Probably cancels out.”

Eddie huffed a laugh. 

Richie fidgeted with the hole in his jeans. “You know…” He started, his tone uncomfortable. Eddie tensed. “The whole thing with — with your inhaler and stuff, that’s nothing to be like, ashamed of.”

Eddie relaxed. “I know,” He sighed, staring at his shoes. “You know, I actually threw it all out.”

“Wait, really?” Richie turned to face him, his face shocked. “That’s — that’s great!” His hands hovered over Eddie’s shoulders for a moment, and then he dropped them after a second without touching him. “When?”

“On my birthday,” Eddie said. 

“Wow,” Richie said, exhaling. “This is gonna sound corny as fuck, but — I’m proud of you, Eds.”

Eddie’s face went red. “Thanks.”

“Look at you, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie ruffled his hair. “All grown up.”

Eddie had thought that life without Richie was the worst thing he could think of. Turned out, it was so much worse being around him, and not being able to tell him how he really felt.

“Fuck off.”

  
  
  
  


“You know, there’s a very good chance I might die from the heat this summer.”

“Tell me about it.”

“No, seriously,” Richie insisted, throwing an arm dramatically over his face. “There’s gotta be some statistics about heat waves in Maine and teenagers. Come on Eds, surely you’ve got one you can pull out of the bag.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie said absentmindedly, turning the page of _Pride and Prejudice,_ the sun reflecting off the pages.

They were out at the Barrens today, which in hindsight was a mistake to choose to go to over the Quarry. They’d all stuck their feet on the murky river to evade heatstroke, and Stan and Bill were wading downstream. Richie, however, hadn’t deigned to go in the water, and was lying on his back, next to where Eddie was sitting on the bank with his legs dangling in the water. Richie’s hair was sticking to his forehead again, curling against the skin, and Eddie was valiantly failing in his attempt to not look at it every chance he got. 

“Hey, what’re you reading?” Richie asked, propping himself up on his elbow and leaning over. 

Eddie held it up, and Richie snorted. “Isn’t that, like, a sappy romance novel for moms?”

“Yeah, I actually got it off your mom last night. You know, after we fucked.”

Richie gasped loudly. “Eds gets off a good one!”

“And I’ll have you know,” Eddie continued loftily, “That it was a recommendation from Ben.”

“Of course it was from _Ben,”_ Richie said. “Ben, who writes his own poetry dedicated to his ‘one true love’, his ‘january embers’.” He made quote marks in the air with his fingers.

“Shut up,” Eddie hissed at him, pulling down his arms and glancing over at where Beverly, Ben and Mike were sat talking on the shore a little ways downstream. That was Ben’s secret, and Richie couldn’t just go around shouting about it. If Eddie understood anything now, it was the constant fear of someone finding out about your soulmate. “How d’you even know about that, anyway?”

“Bev showed me it. She has no idea it’s Ben though, she’s still painfully ignorant, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Richie frowned. “Wait, how do _you_ know about it?”

“Ben told me,” Eddie said, putting down his book. Then he was struck by a thought. “Hey, you don’t think that — that _Ben_ is Bev’s soulmate back, do you?”

Richie stared at Eddie. He stared at him for so long that Eddie started to worry that he had somehow broken Richie, that he had finally snapped. Then, suddenly, Richie began to laugh, laughed so hard that he was past the point of laughing, so that he was just shaking silently with tears running down his cheeks. Eddie watched him, bewildered, until Richie stopped for breath. “Oh my god,” Richie gasped. “I forgot how dense you all were.”

“Hey!” Eddie whacked him. “I’m not dense!”

“You _are,”_ Richie insisted. He began counting off his fingers. “Ben is obviously head over heels in love with Bev. Bev’s birthday comes, and she leaves after she gets her soulmark, distraught by the revelation. Shoots an obvious glance at Ben before leaving. Next morning she breaks up with Bill. What else do you think happened?”

Eddie scowled. “Whatever.”

“Aw, don’t worry Eds,” Richie cooed. “Some might say that being emotionally constipated is a gift. It must be peaceful to be so ignorant of everything all the time.”

“That’s it,” Eddie said loudly. He set his book down on the grass in a flash, and launched himself at Richie, and then they were rolling down the hill together, Richie squawking in surprise. They rolled over and over each other until Eddie was dizzy, then tumbled down and landed with a thump. Eddie sat up, beginning to slap Richie on the face repeatedly.

“Eddie—Agh—Stop it!” Richie laughed, trying to push his arm away. Eddie didn’t relent though, and sat up further, sitting on Richie’s legs. 

“Take it back,” Eddie repeated, pushing down on a struggling Richie. 

“Okay, okay!” Eddie paused to listen. “I’m sorry I called you emotionally constipated. Would you prefer… emotionally stunted, perhaps, good sir? Or maybe unaware, that sounds—Ow!”

Eddie wrestled his shoulders down, and Richie struggled back, still laughing. They stilled for a moment, to catch their breaths, and Eddie’s brain caught up with what he was doing. The traces of a laugh still hadn’t disappeared from Richie’s face underneath Eddie, and his eyes were sparkling in the sunlight under his glasses.

Eddie immediately rolled off and down next to Richie on the grass, side by side, his heart thudding slightly. He felt warm all over. But Richie didn’t show any signs of noticing what Eddie had, and he sighed as they both looked up at the sky.

Still not a single cloud. What Eddie wouldn’t give for a _cold_ breeze. 

“So, now that you’ve seen what was in front of you the whole time…” Eddie shoved Richie’s shoulder. “Should we intervene, or leave them to it?”

Eddie thought for a second. “Nah, let’s leave them to it. It’s supposed to be their thing, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Richie was quiet. “Wish we were at the Quarry right now.”

“Ugh, I’d _just_ forgotten about the heat, asshole.”

“Hey, if I have to suffer, everyone else has to, too.”

Eddie propped himself up on his elbow, and let himself look down at Richie. He was all sweaty and gross, and his hair was limp in the humidity, but he was so beautiful that it made Eddie’s chest hurt. He had his eyes closed, facing the sky, and when he opened his eyes he looked back at Eddie for a moment. 

“Hey, Eds?” Richie was quiet, looking at Eddie with something intense behind his eyes. There was a brief charged moment, where they simply looked at each other silently.

“What?” Eddie’s voice matched the lowness of Richie’s. 

“Race you back to the river.” Richie knocked Eddie over in his haste to stand, and Eddie was left to scramble to his feet, but Richie had already left him in the dust.

“Asshole!”

  
  
  
  


( Eddie actually managed to find time to listen to the mixtape Richie had made him, taking a mercilessly hot afternoon to lie on his bed and play the whole entirety in one sitting. 

There wasn’t an intro like Richie sometimes put on his tapes, and it launched straight into _Careless Whisper_ by George Michael, the obnoxious saxophone making Eddie laugh. It was followed by _The Way You Look Tonight_ by Elton John, which made Eddie smile slightly, and when it was followed by three consecutive Whitney Houston songs he rolled his eyes, before realising that the tape in Mike’s car had probably been Richie’s.

 _Let’s Dance_ by David Bowie was a surprise, and Eddie looked out the window during that one, nodding his head as he watched the stars wink into existence as the sunset faded away. He tried to imagine Richie sitting down and making the tape for him, selecting the songs specifically, but when the song switched to _SOS_ by ABBA he nearly groaned. 

It went on like that, and Eddie closed his eyes at one point, just absorbing the music as it passed him by. A few more ABBA. _Come On Eileen._ That song from _Dirty Dancing. You’re Making My Dreams Come True._ Tears for Fears. The songs had no recognisable theme to them, all assembled in a jumbled order like a train of thought.

The songs were terrible, really. No matter what Richie might protest, his music taste was awful, all 80’s dance pop and disco. Apart from that, though, there was something distinctly—off. Eddie couldn’t put his finger on it, and no matter how many times he cycled through the songs and their lyrics, trying to decipher them, he came up with nothing.

When the opening chords to _Wonderwall_ began, Eddie opened his eyes, surprised. Had Richie remembered their conversation from a few weeks ago at the video store? Or was it just a coincidence? But—no, it couldn’t be, because the song stood out starkly against the rest of the songs as a completely different genre. Eddie had never seen Richie listening to any music like this. It must have been on purpose, especially when the song ended and the walkman made a soft _clack_ noise signalling the end of the mixtape.

Eddie puzzled over it for a while, but eventually he fell asleep, the image of Richie making the mixtape flashing behind his eyelids. )

  
  
  
  


“Have you seriously got your watch set to military time?”

Already sensing what was about to come, Eddie groaned, and leaned back on the sofa cushions. “Fuck off.”

“No seriously!” Richie’s voice rose, and he was shushed by Bev, whose eyes were still stuck to the TV screen. He lowered his voice again. “Who the fuck checks their watch and is like,” He put on a high pitched voice. “Oh look at the time, it’s already 1400!”

“You know, most people with functioning brains can convert it, but of course I can’t expect you to know anything about that.”

Richie reached for Eddie, pulling him in by his arm and making Eddie slump across his side awkwardly. “Aw, is Eddie baby insecure about his time preference?” He wrapped his arms around Eddie’s middle, and the blanket that was draped over the couch twisted around Eddie’s legs.

Eddie squirmed under his grip, mindful of the soulmark just under his t-shirt that could be revealed at just the slightest pull of his collar. “There’s no such thing as time preference, dickwad.”

“I _support_ you, Spaghetti.”

The TV paused with a click, and Eddie and Richie turned mid-struggle to find five pairs of unimpressed eyes staring at them, glinting in the dark, reflecting the light from the screen.

“Just in case you weren’t aware,” Stan said. “We’re actually trying to watch something here.”

“D-don’t let us interrupt you,” Bill added. 

“Please,” Richie scoffed, and released Eddie. “It’s not like anyone _really_ wants to watch,” He squinted at the paused TV, _“The Breakfast Club_ for the five hundredth time.”

 _“I_ do, actually,” Bev said.

“Yeah well, you’re an exception, due to your stale taste in movies.” He ignored Bev’s outraged ‘Hey!’, and turned to Stan. “Stan and I had a solid contender, that almost everyone was on board with.”

“Almost everyone?” Eddie scoffed. “No one wants to watch _The Karate Kid.”_

“Everyone wants to watch _The Karate Kid!”_ Richie turned for support, but was met with silence. “Guys?”

“I mean, it’s better than _The Breakfast Club,”_ Mike conceded. 

Stan snorted. “It’s too late now. Her royal highness decreed it.”

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean?” Bev demanded.

“Nothing,” Stan said airily. “Only that you _always_ manage to get us to rent your pick, over everyone else’s.”

“He has a point,” Bill muttered. Whatever had happened between him and Bev, they’d apparently worked through it in the past few weeks, and weren’t awkward around each other anymore. 

Bev glared at him. “Just because I want to watch something other than guns and fighting, doesn’t mean I have bad taste.” Eddie privately thought this was inaccurate. Richie’s favourites tended to be sci-fi movies or comedies, Stan favoured intellectual mysteries, Bill and Mike liked oldies like _The Great Escape,_ and Ben was happy with anything, but had a passion for romance movies too—none of them really liked proper action movies. “Besides, you guys never protest at my pick! I distinctly remember Richie saying he wanted to do the _Dirty Dancing_ lift with me.”

Richie sat up. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that!”

“Don’t waste your breath, Bev. I doubt Richie’s noodle arms could hold even a feather above his head,” Eddie told her. 

“I’ll have you know, _Spaghetti —_ so called — that I’m _very_ strong,” Richie retorted. “I could probably even lift you.”

Eddie scrambled back before Richie could even move. _“No thank you,_ very much.”

Bill sighed loudly, and Mike slumped against the couch cushions in exhaustion at their antics. “Can we please just put the movie back on?”

“Nope!” Richie said cheerfully. “I refuse to watch any more of this angst ridden garbage. Miss Marsh,” He put in a southern belle accent. “May I have the honour of the next dance?”

“Fuck off, Richie. It’s way too late. We can start tomorrow.”

“You guys are no fun.” Richie collapsed down, landing with his head in Eddie’s lap. Eddie steadfastly ignored that fact, and kept his eyes trained dutifully on the others.

“We should probably get to sleep now, anyway,” Stan said, yawning. Ben was asleep next to him, and Stan patted his head affectionately. 

And so they all went down to their respective sleeping bags on Bev’s living room floor. Eddie was next to Richie, as usual. Someone was snoring as Richie pulled on an old logo t-shirt, the last of them into bed, and Eddie couldn’t help but notice that when Richie got dressed now, he was careful to never leave his top half bare—which Eddie assumed was because of his soulmark. None of the others had questioned further about Eddie’s soulmark, sensing that it was a sensitive issue, but what reason would Richie have to hide his? It must have been a privacy thing. Or maybe his soulmate had terrible handwriting. 

Either way, it made Eddie painfully aware of the fact that Richie had someone else as his soulmate, that he would never be Eddie’s. This past week had been a dream, and Eddie had almost let himself believe that it could always be like this, but thoughts of Richie’s soulmark had given him a harsh reality check, dragging him back down to earth from where he had been floating above it. Richie didn’t like him back. Richie had a soulmate. 

Even though nothing explosive had happened since Eddie had apologised to Richie, he sensed a tension that neither of them were addressing, something solid and crackling between them. He didn’t know what it was, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to. Eddie thought that making up with Richie would have made everything go back to normal, but now things were different in a way he couldn’t explain, in a way that made his palms sweat and his knees shake, only he didn’t think it was with fear.

Eddie heard Richie rustling in his sleeping bag behind him as he climbed in, and then there was the whisper of, “Hey, Eds.”

Eddie rolled over to face Richie, whose face was far closer than he had anticipated. Still, neither of them moved when Eddie whispered back, his lips dangerously close to brushing Richie’s. “What?”

Richie grinned. “Nothin’. Just checking if you were awake.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything back. He kind of wished that he could live in this moment forever, that he could record it and play it back in person. Richie’s grinning face close to his, his glasses off and his eyes drooping with sleep. Both of them turned to face each other, their hands that would be close enough to touch if they weren’t inside their sleeping bags or pillowed under their heads. 

In the end, Eddie couldn’t help himself. He was sleepy, his brain all muddled and confused, and all he knew was Richie’s face right in front of him, grinning and hair a mess, and how much he wanted to kiss him. 

So, he did. 

And for a brief, golden moment, Eddie was kissing Richie Tozier. Richie’s lips were soft and pliant underneath his, his breath warm against Eddie’s face, and Eddie was elated, felt like he was floating, until he realised that _Richie wasn’t kissing him back._

Eddie pulled back in an instant, horrified with himself, sitting up in his haste. Richie was staring at him, his eyes wide and confused, and Eddie’s brain finally caught up with what he had actually just done. 

_Stupid, stupid._ Eddie’s mind was scolding him, screaming at him why, why did he just do that, but everything sounded like it was underwater, muffled and distorted, the only clear thing he could make out Richie’s bewildered face and the thought that you really fucked it up this time, Kaspbrak. 

“Eddie?” Richie whispered, uncertain, and that was crystal clear even through Eddie’s panic. A cold fist closed around Eddie’s heart.

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, willing it all away, hoping to the universe that this was all a terrible, terrible dream. But he opened his eyes, and he was still in Beverly’s living room, surrounded by his sleeping friends, Richie still lying in his sleeping bag — no, that wasn’t right. Richie had sat up too, had put his glasses back on, and was whispering to not wake the others. 

Oh holy fuck, the others. Eddie had not only just kissed his best friend, but he’d done it where anyone could have seen him. 

Eddie struggled to his feet, careful to not step on Ben on the floor behind him, and picked his way quickly across the room to the door, no thoughts in his head except for _get out of there right fucking now._ He scrambled back, back over the couch, nearly tripped on the sleeping bodies littered on the floor, and all but ran over to the door. He didn’t turn his back once, keeping his wide eyes trained on Richie, who was now standing, staring after him, rooted to the spot.

Not Eddie, though. If you looked up ‘fight or flight’ in the dictionary at the library, Eddie’s name would be next to flight. He had way too much pent up anxiety to _not_ close his fist around the doorknob, to open the door and shut it without a sound, to run through the house and sprint back through the dark roads back home. 

God, what had he been thinking? Was he some kind of delusional idiot that hoped for a happy ending just because Richie was his best friend? Richie had enough shit already from people at school who were intent on calling him _(fag, fairy)_ names, he didn’t need a lovestruck idiot to go and kiss him and make his life worse. He didn’t need some pathetic one-sided soulmate to drag him down.

Eddie climbed up to his window, not in the mood to deal with his mother’s tittering, and sat on his bed, feeling numb. He couldn’t fix things now. There was no way he could backtrack on this like he had before. Richie knew now, even if Eddie hadn’t shown him his soulmark. He knew how Eddie felt, and that was enough. Eddie fisted a hand into the corner of the mattress by his leg and resisted the urge to scream. Why did he mess up _everything?_

If this had happened a few weeks ago, Eddie would have immediately gone to his pills, sobbing in shame. But Eddie didn’t even have that now, and so he fisted his hair in his hands, head bowed, elbows digging hard into his knees and did _not_ cry. He squeezed his eyes shut again and pressed hard on his knees, pulled hard on his hair. Breathed deeply, clenched his jaw, ground his teeth. But he did _not_ cry. 

It wasn’t even midnight, Stan’s stupid old man body clock forced them to turn in early. It was dark though, and cloudy outside, the moon and stars blocked out by the haze as Eddie scrabbled around his room, eventually finding his walkman and Richie’s mixtape stuffed in his wardrobe. He clutched it to his chest like a lifeline, and shoved the headphones on, rolling the tape. 

And so, here Eddie was. Slumped on his bedroom floor against his wardrobe door, listening to fucking _Careless Whisper_ by George Michael, trying desperately not to think about the consequences of his stupid actions. 

_Careless Whisper_ slid into _Under Attack,_ and a shadow appeared at Eddie’s window as the song opened. He turned his head as a spike of anxiety mixed in his stomach with the dread that was pooling with a sinister coldness, and sure enough, Richie was there, leaning on the windowsill where Eddie had left the window open, watching him. 

Eddie pulled off his headphones, and the both of them were quiet, regarding each other silently. The only noise was the tinny song still leaking out of the walkman where Eddie hadn’t paused it. It was annoying, and Eddie reached down and flicked it off. 

The silence was making Eddie’s skin crawl, but it didn’t feel like an uncomfortable one, which threw him off. This wasn’t what he had been expecting.

“You know,” Richie said finally. “Most people don’t drop something like that on a person and leave right after.”

Eddie huffed a humorless laugh. “Right.”

Richie kept his eyes on Eddie, with a searching look in his eyes. It was unnerving. Then, suddenly, his eyes flicked down to the walkman. “Is that my mixtape?”

“Technically, it’s my mixtape now.”

Richie snorted, then swung himself into the room, uncharacteristically quiet. Eddie watched him warily as he walked over and sat down beside him, sliding down the wardrobe door before letting one leg stretch out in front of him, the other bent up to his chest. They faced the wall where Eddie’s pills had been shattered that night that felt so far away now. Shadows were cast into the room by the lamppost outside, and that corner of the room was completely dark; the pills could have easily been hidden there if Eddie didn’t know for sure that they were long gone.

Richie was so close that Eddie could feel the warmth radiating from his body. If he even shifted an inch, they would be touching. What Eddie wouldn’t give to just be able to lean his head on Richie’s shoulder, to have the assurance of simple touch from another human being.

“Wonder if it’ll finally rain.” 

Eddie simply gave a one shouldered shrug, his entire body feeling stiff, tense. 

Richie sighed slightly, as if exasperated with Eddie’s unwillingness to talk, and turned his head to look out the window, away from Eddie. The room was still.

What was Richie playing at? Why hadn’t he mentioned the kiss yet? Was he dragging it out on purpose?

Eddie still hadn’t said anything, and the silence emanating from Richie was unsettling. It was a tangible thing in the atmosphere, frustration coming off him in waves. Richie expressed everything in full amplitude, with his loud barking laughs and on occasion, big heaving sobs, and so Richie’s annoyance wasn’t exactly hard to detect. Even if it was, Eddie would have noticed: he was an expert in reading Richie Tozier’s emotions by now.

He had to say something.

And Eddie’s big mouth took the wheel again, unable to control itself around Richie.

“You know your music taste is shit, right?” Eddie said, and when Richie suddenly snapped his eyes back to him, his gaze intense all of a sudden, he swallowed before continuing. “I mean, Whitney Houston? Really?”

Richie narrowed his eyes for a fraction of a second, but ultimately came to a silent conclusion and nudged Eddie with his elbow. “Yeah, but you were listening to it.”

Eddie faltered at that, unsure whether that was a statement with a hidden meaning. “I was.” He kept his eyes on the floor.

The next silence was actually awkward. Eddie could feel Richie’s eyes on him, but didn’t dare look up in fear of what he would find. 

What had he said? Why was Richie staring at him like that out of the corner of Eddie’s eye, like Eddie had said something important? He backtracked through the conversation, but he was coming up with nothing. Nothing that he’d said was amiss, at least to Eddie’s knowledge. Panic welled in his chest. Couldn’t Richie just get the whole conversation over with, tell Eddie that he didn’t want him to kiss him again? 

The silence stretched on. 

“Alright.” Richie sounded uncomfortable. “This conversation is getting really hard to read, so I’m gonna do something and you have to promise not to freak out, okay?”

Eddie turned with a frown, a question already forming on his tongue, but suddenly there was a hand on his jaw tilting his head carefully, and he nearly reeled back in shock, his eyes wide and staring as a pair of lips were pressed to his.

Every thought in Eddie’s brain stuttered to a halt.

Holy fuck, _what?_

Eddie stopped himself from pulling away at the last minute, paralysed by the feeling of Richie’s fingertips against his jaw, solid and real. Richie’s lips were soft and moving against his, and it was all Eddie could do to just sit there, frozen, because what the actual fuck? Was he dreaming? Was this a hallucination, had he died and gone to heaven, or was he in hell, being tortured?

Richie was gentle, and he curled a hand around the side of Eddie’s face almost tentatively, and that — the tentativeness, the uncertainty from _Trashmouth —_ was what made Eddie realise this was in fact, happening, and that he needed to reciprocate in order to stop Richie from thinking he wasn’t into it. He shut his eyes, giving into instinct, and slipped a hand around Richie’s neck, bringing him closer, tilting his head to a more comfortable position so that their noses brushed momentarily. Richie sighed a little against his mouth, and all the muscles in his body that had been held taught without Eddie noticing relaxed.

And this, this was entirely worth the wait. 

Eddie felt a warmth spread through his entire body, from the middle of his chest to the ends of his fingers and toes, as he let himself lean into it, really enjoy what was happening. So this was the crackling tension between the both of them, now alive and running through every spot where their bodies met, making Eddie feel like he was dying and more alive than he had ever been simultaneously. He wanted to do this forever, wanted to get closer to Richie, closer and closer.

Eddie grasped at Richie a little more desperately once the initial shock had passed, pulling him closer, and Richie’s eyelashes brushed Eddie’s cheeks as he moved his arms to clutch at Eddie’s face, kissing him like it was the only thing on earth keeping him alive. Eddie felt like he was drowning, his sight, his hearing, all his senses obscured by a blanket of water blocking it out.

Richie moved a hand to Eddie’s hip, leaning him over slightly in an attempt to push closer, and Eddie was suddenly aware of a dull pain in his knees from where they were cramped from kneeling on the hard floor, his back aching from holding himself at an odd angle. It was uncomfortable, and he almost wanted to move their positions, but held himself back, not wanting to break this fragile moment between them.

He suddenly had a brilliant idea, and without detaching his mouth from Richie’s, he pushed at Richie’s chest, and with a surprised noise and a soft _thump,_ Richie fell onto his back, on the floor, his hair spread out on the carpet. Eddie felt hot all over as he pushed Richie down, half on top of him, gripping at his arms, his face, his hair, wanting more, more. He found his way under Richie’s shirt, spreading his hands over his stomach, reaching higher, and—

Richie pulled back, panting. “Wait,” He said, catching his breath. Spying Eddie’s worried face he assured quickly, brushing a hand on Eddie’s cheek, “It’s nothing wrong, I just need to— check something.”

“Check what?” Eddie placed a hand over Richie’s, the feeling of his hand underneath Eddie’s causing a soft ache in his heart. Not a painful one, like before, but instead it felt assuring, like it was grounding him. Richie stared up at him for a second, chewing his lip, then sat up. Eddie did so too reluctantly, watching Richie closely.

Richie looked down at their still intertwined hands as he stroked his thumb over Eddie’s palm, and began, “So, I don’t want to make this weird or anything, but this situation’s just escalated way quicker than I thought it would, like, ever, and I need to be sure.” He glanced at Eddie furtively, but the confusion must have been clear on his face, because then he said, “Your soulmark.” Eddie blinked, and Richie continued hurriedly, “It’s fine if I’m not, you know. But I just need to tell you. That you’re, um. Mine.”

 _Huh?_ “Yours?” Eddie threaded his fingers through Richie’s and smiled confusedly. It was a nice sentiment, but clearly wasn’t all that Richie was trying to communicate here. 

“Soulmate,” Richie clarified.

Eddie’s jaw dropped. “Oh.”

“So you’re not mine back, then.” Richie attempted a smile, but his disappointment was evident. “That’s okay. We don’t have to—“

Eddie pressed a finger from his free hand to Richie’s lips, and he fell silent while Eddie tried to hurry his brain along, to process what he had just been told. It was like his brain was on a treadmill, the speed getting faster and faster as more and more information was given, and when it was too much, when it got too fast, it tumbled off the back. Now it was struggling to get back on, to reset the pace to something slower, more manageable.

Soulmate. Richie’s soulmate. Who was Eddie. Eddie who was Richie’s soulmate. Richie had a soulmate. Richie’s soulmate was— Eddie? 

Wait. Wait. Eddie was Richie’s soulmate?

“Did you just—“ Eddie cut himself off, mind racing, and Richie took his finger away from his mouth to speak.

“Look, it’s fine, okay? You don’t have to—“ 

“Wait. Just—Shut up a second.” Richie fell silent again, and Eddie waited. His brain was resetting the speed, calibrating the distance. The treadmill was starting up again, stuttering into something resembling a rhythm. Slowly, slowly, his brain picked up speed, and began processing the information he’d just been given. The gears began turning.

Soulmates. Right. Richie had just told Eddie that he was his soulmate. 

Wait. What?

Eddie glanced at Richie again. Was he for real? Richie was sitting nervously, watching him for a reaction, some indication of what he was thinking, his back ramrod straight. Eddie felt his heart lift hopefully as he realised that Richie was serious, what this actually meant. 

But Richie didn’t know yet, didn’t know that he was Eddie’s soulmate. Eddie needed to tell him.

“Didn’t you _just_ say something about dropping something on a person and reacting too quickly?” Eddie said, his mouth stretching into a grin. 

“Huh?” 

“Dumbass,” Eddie muttered affectionately. “Just look.” He pulled aside his shirt collar, and waited for the penny to drop. 

Richie frowned at him, and Eddie nodded to his shoulder. His gaze followed the direction of the nod, coming to a halt at the soulmark, and Eddie watched the realisation dawn on Richie’s face, saw the exact moment that he realised what it meant. It was like the flick of a switch, and his whole expression went slack for a moment. 

Then, Richie’s eyes went as wide as saucers, and he glanced up at Eddie as if to check he was being serious, his mouth falling open in surprise. Which was stupid, because, _duh,_ it was a tattoo on his skin, couldn’t exactly fake that. Eddie simply raised an eyebrow at him slightly, challenging him to challenge it, and Richie’s eyes got even wider, if that was possible, when he got confirmation.

“Oh,” Richie breathed. 

He reached out a hand, then stopped, retracting outstretched fingers, looking at Eddie questioningly. Eddie nodded silent assent, and Richie reached his hand out again, tracing a hand over the letters, an electric current spreading from where his fingers met Eddie’s collarbone all the way down Eddie’s spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

“Wow,” Richie whispered, looking up at Eddie again reverently.

Eddie quirked a corner of his mouth up in a lopsided smile, and ran a hand through Richie’s hair. Because he could do that now, after imagining it for who knew how long. It was exactly how Eddie had imagined it, impossibly soft and thick and curling ever so slightly at the ends. 

“Show me yours?” Eddie asked. 

Richie’s eyebrows furrowed a fraction, but he got it quicker than Eddie had, his expression clearing in understanding. Then his face twisted in—embarrassment? “Oh. Right. I just have to—“ He stopped, and gestured at his shirt.

“Oh,” Eddie said. _“Oh._ Want me to—“

“No, no, it’s fine,” Richie said quickly. “I’ll just—yeah.” The tops of his ears went bright red, and he reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it off quickly. 

Eddie felt himself flush as well, but Richie swiftly turned his back to him, ducking his head slightly, revealing the mark scrawled across his shoulder blades.

The first thing Eddie registered was that the mark was exactly where _his_ mark was, only on Richie’s back. As in, if someone shot an arrow through that spot, it would emerge exactly where Eddie’s mark was on the other side, on Richie’s collarbone. It was a little detail, but it felt important to note nonetheless, and Eddie wondered faintly if the marks would line up if he held Richie from behind. 

The second was that this was where he used to stare at Richie the most when they were at the Quarry, before everything happened. It had been the only place he could openly stare at without Richie seeing, and so he was already well acquainted with the familiar slopes and corners, the sharp, wide shoulder blades and the toned muscles above (how they were toned, Eddie had no idea. Richie hadn’t done a day of hardcore exercise all summer, and his arms and legs were still awkwardly lanky and long, yet he still had a hint of lean muscle to him that Eddie had noticed on multiple occasions.). Whenever Richie would climb out of the Quarry, droplets of water would drip off his hair and onto his shoulders, sparkling in the sunlight, highlighting the angles and sheer breadth of them.

Eddie shook himself crossly out of that train of thought, which led him to the third and final realisation, which was more of a check in with reality rather than a surprise. 

This was it. This was Richie’s soulmark, the one that had plagued Eddie’s thoughts for so long, that he’d agonised over endlessly, not knowing what the letters were, not knowing that he was closer to the truth than he had thought. 

_‘EK’,_ about the size of an apple, in familiar black handwriting. 

This was proof that Eddie wasn’t dreaming. His _own initials,_ permanently marked on Richie’s back, like he had written it there himself. It was like he had chosen the spot himself, had willed the universe into putting it there after the hours he spent staring at it. Those letters were there forever. This was a forever thing, and it made Eddie shiver with anticipation.

He mirrored Richie’s earlier movements, touching a hand to the mark, almost as if to prove to himself that it was real. Richie jumped a little when Eddie’s fingertips brushed him. 

“Sorry,” Eddie said apologetically, drawing his hand away. 

“It’s okay, it’s just—“ Richie laughed a little. “Your hands are cold.”

He was right, Eddie thought distantly as he placed his fingertips on the mark yet again. His hands were cold, and Richie’s skin was warm.

“Holy shit,” Eddie whispered. “You’re my soulmate.”

“No shit,” Richie whispered back. He turned back around, and brought a knuckle underneath Eddie’s chin and the other hand to the side of his face, sweeping away a stray strand of hair across his cheekbone. Eddie studied his eyes, deep deep brown, big and full of emotion threatening to spill over.

“What, no clever quips this time, Trashmouth?” Eddie murmured, leaning his forehead onto Richie’s.

“Jeez, give a guy some time to prepare, will you?” Richie said softly, so softly, in every sense of the word. “It’s not like I’ve had the chance to plan this one out beforehand.” He leaned forwards at the same time Eddie did, and they were kissing again. 

This time was much better because Eddie actually knew what to expect. He immediately clasped his hands around Richie’s neck, his fingers brushing the hair at the nape of his neck, and Richie seemed to take that in stride, moving both hands to cup Eddie’s face, slowly sliding them down his sides, as if savouring the movement. Eddie let his hands roam the expanse of Richie’s bare back, over the soft, warm skin, and then slipped them back up to his hair, where he threaded his fingers through and gave an experimental tug. 

Richie made a noise at that which made Eddie’s insides light on fire, and Richie’s limbs seemed to turn to jelly, collapsing like a dead weight on top of Eddie so that they both fell back on the floor again. Eddie laughed at Richie’s bright red face, and stood, tugging him by his hand to his feet.

“Come on,” Eddie said, pulling Richie over to his bed. “Lying on the floor is gross.”

Eddie lay on the bed first and was followed quickly by Richie, who immediately started to tug at the hem of Eddie’s shirt. 

“Off, off, I wanna see the mark again.”

Eddie sat up and quickly took it off, handing Richie the t-shirt, who threw it away so quickly it smacked against the wall. There was no time to be self conscious before Richie was pressing Eddie back down on the pillows. He left a lingering kiss to the soulmark, and placed his arms either side of Eddie’s, a knee holding the majority of his weight. He pulled back after a moment though, staring at Eddie with something akin to wonder.

“Look at you,” He whispered, tracing the soulmark again, his voice achingly tender. “God, I can’t believe this is real.” He stroked the slope from Eddie’s jaw down to his shoulder, and then, “Pinch me, Eds.” He held out his arm, and Eddie gave him a mildly unimpressed look before pinching him. 

Richie gasped dramatically in mock-pain, and fell on top of Eddie, his face resting on Eddie’s chest. Eddie lifted an arm to drape it around Richie’s middle, who shifted slightly then sighed. 

“This is insane,” Eddie said.

Richie lifted his head, propping his chin up on the centre of Eddie’s chest so he could look at him. “Completely.”

Eddie scowled slightly, a thought coming to him. “No, wait a second. You mean to tell me that we both had each other as soulmates and neither of us figured it out?”

“Huh.” Richie thought a second. “I mean, I was pretty obvious. I can’t believe you didn’t work it out.”

 _“You_ were being obvious?” Eddie said incredulously, running a hand through Richie’s hair behind his ears. “I literally ran away and hid for a week. And I refused to show anyone my soulmark.”

“Okay, but I threw up.” 

“This isn’t a competition.”

“You made it into one!”

“Whatever.”

“No, wait,” Richie insisted, boosting himself onto his forearms, planted either side of Eddie’s shoulders. “Did you not work it out from the mixtape?”

Eddie frowned up at him. “What about the mixtape?”

 _“Oh my god,”_ Richie slapped a hand over his eyes in despair. “You are so dense.”

“What? What was so important about the mixtape?”

“All the songs were love songs! And I even put on that stupid album you were raving about!”

Eddie’s eyes widened. “I _knew_ there was something off about that tape!”

“Yeah, asshole! I saw you listening to it earlier and I thought you already knew!”

“But, like half the songs in the world are love songs.” Eddie paused. “Wait. Did you put love songs on because you _love_ me?”

Richie went red again. 

“Oh my god, you _love_ me, you idiot!” Eddie grinned, and held Richie’s face, turning him so Eddie could look at him. 

Richie scowled at him, his cheeks squished between Eddie’s hands. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Eddie flicked him lightly on the forehead. “Besides, I love you, too.” 

After everything, it was easy to say, easier than breathing. It was simple. The truth.

“A-ha! Knew it!” Richie launched himself onto Eddie again, stealing a kiss. Eddie wound his arms around Richie’s neck again, deepening it, and when Richie’s tongue slid in, he froze momentarily. Richie noticed, and pulled back. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Eddie said, breathless. “Just a surprise. You can— you can do it again.”

Richie’s eyes widened, his face flushing slightly, but he kissed Eddie again, and this time, when his tongue broached the seam of Eddie’s lips, Eddie reciprocated haltingly, navigating unfamiliar territory. Richie responded with enthusiasm, his hand going to run through Eddie’s hair, and that gave Eddie the confidence to slide his tongue against Richie’s, any thoughts of bacteria far behind him. Richie made another noise, ever vocal in every aspect of life, and then they were full on frenching — god, Eddie hated that word — exploring each other’s mouths, learning each other. It was a while before either of them came up for air, gasping for breath. 

A though occurred to Eddie while he was catching his breath. Richie telling him about the mixtape made him think back over the past few weeks, for something else he could have missed. The store, no. The library, no, he’d never been there with Eddie. The clubhouse, nothing that hadn’t already been revealed. The bridge—

“R+E,” Eddie breathed, his eyes wide. It was _Fredrick_ Sovika that Rose Blake was dating, not Erik.

Richie’s flushed. “Oh. You saw that?”

“Yeah, I just thought that—“ Eddie stopped. How had he possibly missed that? It had been right in front of him. “Oh god. Maybe you’re right. Am I dense?”

“He’s becoming self aware,” Richie wiped away a nonexistent tear from his cheek. Eddie shoved at his chest.

“You know, that’s pretty sappy, carving initials,” Eddie said. “Are you a romantic, Rich? Don’t tell me you’ve been holding out on me all this time.”

“Shh, it’s my best kept secret,” Richie pressed another kiss to Eddie’s mouth.

“Nah, it’s not,” Eddie said. “Because I’ve got your best kept secret.” Richie raised an eyebrow curiously, and Eddie continued, “I know how to get the Trashmouth to shut up.”

“Oh my god, you just ruined it.”

“See, now I need to use this power,” Eddie talked over him, “For good. Like, whenever I feel like you’re being annoying, I can just kiss that stupid smile off your face.”

“Is that all?” Richie pouted. “I thought you liked kissing me.”

“Well, I didn’t say that was the _only_ time I would do it.”

“How about now?” Richie said in a low voice. He suddenly bent his head, and began mouthing at Eddie’s neck, eliciting a small gasp from him. The sudden mood change should have been jarring, but with Richie, it wasn’t. He already went back and forth with his emotions constantly, this didn’t come as a surprise. Eddie felt his insides heat up again, the back of his neck tingling as Richie started kissing at his throat. “Wanna kiss me now?”

“Dickhead.” In retaliation, Eddie ran his fingernails lightly up the length of Richie’s back, making him shiver. Eddie grinned in satisfaction when Richie made a muffled sound slightly against his neck, but it was all for nothing, because then Richie began to _bite_ and _suck_ in earnest at the skin there, as if to make a point.

“No — fair,” Eddie said stiltedly, gripping Richie’s shoulders, one palm situated right above his soulmark.

“All’s fair in love and war, Eddie-baby.”

 _“Fine,”_ Eddie hissed. He grabbed Richie around the neck again, and this time their kiss was less lazy, and had a more urgent, heated energy about it. It was a clashing of lips and teeth and tongues, and Richie groaned slightly into Eddie’s mouth as Eddie wrapped his legs around his waist, dragging him down so their bodies were flush against each other.

“Fair now?”

  
  
  
  


“Eddie. Psst, Eds.”

Eddie woke slowly from dreams about warm summer meadows and picnic blankets on the grass, and he kept his eyes closed just a moment longer, trying to make the most of the last few moments of sleep. The tendrils of the dream were still at the edges of his vision, and he tried to grasp them back, only for them to disappear completely when he tried. 

His bed was warm, warmer than usual, and he tried to absorb it as he opened his eyes slowly, his eyelids still slightly stuck together with sleep. He mumbled slightly, annoyed by the disturbance, boosting up on his elbows, and someone laughed quietly at him. 

At that, Eddie’s eyes snapped open, and he was met with a face _extremely_ close to his. In his surprise, Eddie sat up quickly, his head colliding with something hard and solid.

“Ow!” 

“Don’t wake someone up like that!” Eddie scowled, rubbing at his forehead where he had banged it. “Wait—Richie?” And sure enough, collapsed beside him was Richie, readjusting his glasses where they had been knocked askew.

“No, it’s Mother Fucking Theresa.” 

The room was bright where Eddie had left the window open, and it was raining outside, the grey overcast day leaking into his bedroom. Finally, the heatwave was over, and Eddie wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn for once.

Eddie frowned, his head still cloudy, blinking slowly. “But what are you…” 

Richie looked up at him, eyebrows raised, and Eddie was suddenly aware of their general lack of clothing. And the fact that they were both in Eddie’s bed, had probably been tangled around each other in their sleep up until a few minutes earlier. “...Oh.”

Richie grinned. “Yeah. ‘Oh’.”

Eddie rubbed his eyes, then said, “Wait, turn around.”

Richie frowned at him. “What?”

“Just— turn around, I want to check.”

Richie shrugged, and twisted to turn his back to Eddie. When Eddie caught sight of the ‘EK’ still printed on his shoulder, he let out a sigh of relief, wilting slightly. “Oh, thank god. I wasn’t sure.”

“Oh—right. Sorry, I didn’t realise,” Richie said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I checked earlier.”

Eddie let the epiphany from the night before set in, become the new normal in the daylight. Richie and Eddie were each other’s soulmates, and he couldn’t suppress his smile at the thought. All of that stress over the past few weeks for nothing, because Eddie had been Richie’s soulmate all along.

“What are you smiling about?” Eddie glanced down at Richie, who had lain back on the mattress, his hair all over the place. He looked soft like this in the morning, his hair messy in a different way than normal, his eyes blinking blearily, his expressions lazy, like he couldn’t be bothered to twist his features all the way into a specific emotion this early in the morning. It made Eddie’s whole entire body warm with a distinct tenderness that he couldn’t seem to shake — seeing Richie this early in the morning felt intimate, private.

The smile didn’t leave Eddie’s face as he leaned down and brushed a quick kiss on Richie’s mouth. “Nothing.”

Eddie began to withdraw, but Richie didn’t let him go, chasing his lips. “You call that a kiss?” He complained, winding his arms around Eddie’s neck, pulling him down.

Eddie rolled his eyes and kissed Richie again, smiling against his mouth, letting himself be dragged down. “You’re lucky I’m kissing you before you’ve brushed your teeth,” He mumbled against Richie’s lips.

“I think I’m lucky to kiss you at all,” Richie retorted, proving Eddie’s observation of his inherent general sappiness correct, and pulled Eddie closer so that he couldn’t voice a response. He was, however, underestimating Eddie’s need to have the last word. They had that in common, Eddie thought giddily.

Eddie detached himself, sighing contentedly as he lay back down next to Richie, settling on his outstretched arm which rested above his shoulders, and leant into his side. “Big fucking sap.”

Richie didn’t respond to that, only poked Eddie in the cheek as they lay together, close in Eddie’s twin bed so neither would fall off. This was so similar to the sleepovers they always used to have as kids and yet so different simultaneously. Eddie remembered the way that they always managed to end up in the same bed together, despite the fact that there was always a mattress out for the other.

The rain was pattering softly against the roof, and Eddie could also hear it from the open window. He craned his neck to look out.

“It’s finally raining.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, fuck you too.” Eddie slumped back against him.

“I’ve only been awake for what—an hour, and I didn’t see it, so thank you for letting me know.”

“An hour?” Eddie frowned. “What time even is it?”

Richie gave a long suffering sigh, and sat up, leaving Eddie’s head to slip off his arm and onto the pillow. The pillow was noticeably the less comfortable of the two.

“Oh _fuck,”_ Richie said loudly a second later, springing from the bed. 

“What?” Eddie immediately sat up, on alert. “What’s wrong?”

Richie turned slowly to meet Eddie’s eyes, his expression one of pure terror. “It’s nine AM.”

Eddie frowned. “We care because…?”

“The others,” Richie hissed. “They’re gonna notice we’re gone! They’ll probably send out a fucking search party soon!”

 _“Shit,”_ Eddie said, leaping from the bed. “They can’t come here, my mom will kill me!”

Richie paused from where he had been shaking out his t-shirt of its creases. “Okay. Okay. Here’s the plan. They might not be up yet, so here’s what we do. We go back, sneak back into our sleeping bags, and pretend that we never left. We can wear what we were wearing yesterday, and they’ll never even notice! Foolproof.”

Eddie frowned, a little more dubious, but after going through the plan in his head, he couldn’t think of a better one. “Okay. You have to go out the window though, my mom can’t see you.”

Richie nodded briskly. Then, he went back to pulling back on his clothes, and despite Eddie’s disgust with recycling the clothes that had been lying in the floor all night, he followed suit. If they were going to make this believable, they would have to pay attention to every detail. 

They were both silent as they changed as quick as possible, and Eddie finished just as Richie was pulling on his jacket. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

He turned to the door, but Richie caught him by the wrist spinning Eddie around and around and back into the circle of his arms for one last kiss. Eddie smiled up at him, in disbelief that this was real, placing his hand on his cheek lightly. “Be quick.”

”Yeah, yeah,” Richie said, and Eddie stepped back. “Just hurry up.”

Eddie stepped out of his room, shutting the door quietly behind him, and listened out for his mother. Her bedroom door was still shut, the curtains in the hallway still drawn, no indication that she was awake. Eddie crept down the hall and down the stairs, well rehearsed in taking the steps that didn’t creak the floorboards. 

So far, so good. He hadn’t made a sound. The stairs loomed closer, and Eddie tiptoed over, not daring to even hold the banister. 

He tried the first step, tensing up and straining to listen for any creak.

The silence remained undisturbed.

Eddie tried the next step, and the next. Not a sound. He relaxed a little, taking the steps a little quicker. He neared the last step, not watching where he was stepping, and the board groaned loudly in protest. He yanked up his foot, his heart hammering in his ears.

But there was no movement from his mother’s bedroom. He let out a breath, and took the right step this time, finally arriving at the ground floor. 

It was easier to hurry through the kitchen and out the front door, and Eddie stepped out onto the front porch. He only realised once the door had shut behind him that he’d forgotten a jacket, but he couldn’t go back now. He cursed under his breath, and looked out onto the front yard.

The rain was dripping off the roof of the porch, and fat drops were soaking the small patch of grass and the pavement. Richie was nowhere to be found, and so Eddie stepped out into the rain, looking up at his window.

Richie was sticking his head out the open window, and waved once he saw Eddie. Eddie held up his hands, like, _what’s going on?_

Richie pointed at the roof of the porch, then at the drainpipe, which were both dripping with water. He was probably trying to communicate that he thought he was going to slip. They didn’t have time for that, though, but Eddie couldn’t exactly shout that out to him, because then his mother would wake up.

Instead, he tapped his wrist, miming checking a watch.

Even from this distance, Richie’s exaggerated eye roll was visible.

But all the same, Richie began to climb out the window, albeit slower than usual. He edged both legs out of the window, and made his way across the roof of the porch, towards the drain pipe. He slipped once, falling on his ass and sliding down the roof halfway. He caught himself though, and shot Eddie a frantic look. Eddie couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his mouth, and laughed even more when Richie flipped him off, scowling.

It must have been killing Richie to stay silent. He got to the drain pipe, and gripped it tightly as he attempted to climb down, but he clearly underestimated the wetness of the plastic, and he slid all the way down at a rapid speed, landing on his feet, but as soon as he let go of the pipe he lost his footing, slipping in the grass and landing in the mud.

Eddie rushed over, still laughing, and Richie was still scowling as Eddie offered a hand to pull him to his feet. 

“Oh my god, you’re covered in mud,” Eddie said in dismay.

“No fucking shit, Sherlock,” Richie grumbled. He tried to wipe at the mud covering his pants, but it was no use. There was no way that he was going to get any of it off, and the backs of his legs were soaking. 

“Come on, we have to go. We’ll just have to hope that no one notices.”

”Yeah. No way anyone’ll notice this.”

”Complain about it later. We’re wasting time.”

Eddie dragged him by the arm, marching down the street. Beverly’s house wasn’t too far, they might just get there in time. Richie caught him up, and slung an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, and Eddie couldn’t even find it in himself to detach himself in fear of getting mud on himself because he was nearly soaked through already from the rain. 

He looked over at Richie, whose hair was flopping in his eyes, and reached out a hand to push it off his face. Richie blinked in surprise, and Eddie reached his other hand to loop around Richie’s waist, cementing their sides together. Richie smiled, lopsided, looking away.

They reached Bev’s house in silence, and arrived at her door. Eddie took his arm from Richie’s waist, but stopped himself right before pressing the doorbell, remembering they were supposed to be sneaking in. He glanced back at Richie, unsure.

“Did we even plan this far ahead?”

Richie tried the door. “Locked,” He announced. 

“I think I got that, thanks.”

“Just letting you know, no need to get snippy.”

“Snippy?” Eddie made a face. 

Richie took his index and middle fingers, making a pair of scissors with his fingers, pretending to snip off Eddie’s nose with rapid movements. Eddie batted his hand away.

“Well, what are we gonna do now?” Eddie tried to peer through the peephole.

“You know those things don’t work backwards, right?”

“I know that, asshole,” Eddie snapped. “Have you got a better idea?”

“We could try climbing through the window? You were perfectly fine with me doing that.”

“Oh come on, you do that all the time.”

“Not when it’s raining!”

“Same difference! _“_

“You cannot be being serious right now.”

“You are so _infuriating—“_

There was a click in the lock, and both of them whipped around just to see the front door open.

Stanley Uris was on the other side of the door, and he eyed the both of them with a certain type of exhaustion, taking in their soaking hair and wet clothes from last night, Richie’s mud covered sweatpants which had smeared all over Eddie’s pants as well. 

“Hiya Stan,” Richie said cheerfully. “Man, you will not believe what happened to us.”

Eddie shot Stan an apologetic smile, but was met with his heavily disappointed gaze.

“I can’t deal with you two this early in the morning.”

And with that, Stan shut the door in their faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then they leave derry after senior year and go to LA and get married and live happily ever after <3
> 
> i think that this was the kind of ending that feels more realistic, i don’t think there would be some massive thing where they’re out yet, but i’m envisioning a future for them where they’re happy in LA, or wherever they move to. also i specifically didn’t specify whether this was AU or post IT 2017, so you can choose to think that IT never happened and they live happily while seeing the losers all the time, or if you’re a masochist, that they move away and forget everyone apart from each other and come back in 2016 happily married to derry (it’s also why i didn’t resolve the benverly drama, they wouldn’t work it out until they all come back). either way, they get married and get some therapy godammit
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr @theboilingrock, leave a comment or kudos if you liked this!


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